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Episode 73: Gamer featuring Max Graves
65 Plays2 months ago
Max Graves, cartoonist behind What Happens Next, drops round to our server and has something to stream, it’s Gamer (2009). The penultimate feature of the directing duo Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, it stars Gerard Butler taking cover, has Michael C. Hall doing an accent and has Kyra Sedgewick, Jon Lequizamo and Terry Cruise as a TV anchor, a target and a homicidal maniac respectively. It’s stupid, with hard to follow action, but it’s still compelling in its own way. Both full of Bad Things and Good Things, it begs conversation, so tune in!
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:40
Speaker
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to your favorite bad movie podcast. It's the only podcast that's brave enough to ask the question, this movie's so bad, why do you like it so much?
00:00:51
Speaker
We're your hosts. My name is Chris Anderson. And with me, as always, I have the cable to my Jason, Mr. Greg Bossy. Hello, hello, hello.
00:01:03
Speaker
How are you doing, my friend? I'm feeling pretty good. Yourself? Oh, hanging in, hanging in Another day in the jungle. Unfortunately, we do not have my dear wife, Anna, with me.
00:01:15
Speaker
But we do have with us a very special guest. You might know him as an illustrator or a cartoonist. You might know him as, hey, the hot dog man at the Colorado Rockies baseball stadium.
00:01:31
Speaker
It's our own personal castle, Mr. Max Graves. How are you, Max? I'm good. I'm good. I would like to clarify that I actually sell Dippin' Dots and not hot dogs. oh i didn't know Good to know.
00:01:44
Speaker
A classier product, a tougher sell. Yeah, for sure, for sure. They kind of look like aquarium gravel. Yeah, a little bit. I never took the plunge on a Dippin' Dott.
00:01:55
Speaker
They always, something about it, was like, no thanks. ah i'll I'll just have ice cream. is it have you got Are you guys Dippin' Dots, guys? I've never had them. I've had like a bite of them surreptitiously. I'm not supposed to eat any.
00:02:09
Speaker
And they taste okay, but it is hard for me to get over how unlike food they look. Yeah. Yeah.
Max's Fascination with 'Gamer'
00:02:18
Speaker
yeah Well, you chose this week's movie and you chose the movie gamer. Now listeners, if you haven't seen the movie gamer, here's just a short summary to hold in your mind.
00:02:37
Speaker
In the near future, human beings willingly enslaved themselves to serve as avatars in real world video games. And now, the deadliest avatar in the world must team up with his gamer to take down the system.
00:02:55
Speaker
Yeah, I guess. I feel that very and feel like they don't really team up so much as the gamer's like, I'll step back, actually. Yeah, I will set you free. Yeah.
00:03:06
Speaker
Genie. Max... You had gamer right off the top. You're not one of our hammers and horrors. When I asked you to come on the show and I asked you for a favorite bad movie, you had gamer at the top of the dome.
00:03:18
Speaker
Tell me about your love affair with gamer. Yeah. Um, it's, funny there were other, there are other bad movies that I like a lot, but like, I think that, I guess I chose gamer because I'm like, well, gamer is kind of good, but it is, it is bad, but like, there is something, there is something to it. I actually, yeah, i saw a gamer,
00:03:38
Speaker
at like a repertory screening at the music box theater, which is an independent theater in Chicago.
Filming Techniques and Style of 'Gamer'
00:03:42
Speaker
There was like a rave beforehand in the theater. This is like a thing they had started doing. There was like a DJ on.
00:03:49
Speaker
And I actually missed that part. I think because I like wanted to go get a hot dog. Fair enough. That's fair. And then I showed up to ah to Gamer, and they had, like, very recently at the Music Box had a screening of, like, Blue Velvet, where I guess people were, like, talking and, like, laughing really loudly and being disrespectful to the film.
00:04:09
Speaker
So they were having somebody come out before the movie and be like, you know, please don't talk over the movie. Please don't, like, you know, make too much noise. Like, we're all here to enjoy this together. Can we take this seriously?
00:04:21
Speaker
and then they played the movie, and the movie was Gamer. Mm-hmm. This is fantasy. And, like, it was it was introduced by, like, there was, like, a woman who, like, gave a talk beforehand about, like, her emotional connection to, like, the female lead in the movie Gamer. Okay.
00:04:40
Speaker
I, like... It's very, it was it's like a very confusing way to be introduced to the movie. Yeah. It sounds like this, this was a strange movie. I had not seen this one before.
00:04:54
Speaker
I had seen the other works that these directors had done, ah but I had always, it, it felt like it wasn't, I don't know who this was for. Like when it came out in like 2009, I think I was older than the target audience.
00:05:10
Speaker
It just seemed odd to me. Greg, had you seen this one before? So when it started during the opening sequence where they're talking about ah Dexter and society Dexter, yeah but when I say Dexter audience, I mean the man who plays Dexter, Michael C hall. census michael seehall Yeah. I'm just going to keep calling him Dexter. Unfortunately ah so Dexter's talking about his ah game society, which is like a second life. And I remember this montage and i was like, have I seen this before?
00:05:38
Speaker
ah And after a while, I realized what I think had happened is I had just seen a
Performances and Themes in 'Gamer'
00:05:43
Speaker
chunk of it on like a Saturday at someone's house flipping through cable or like, oh gamer. And watched it. We're like, wow, that seems very stupid. And then we moved on to whatever it was we were doing because it is pretty stupid, but it's pretty interesting to Yeah, I think it it's both stupid and correct, which I think is what makes it compelling. It's interesting.
00:06:07
Speaker
And I had seen, I'm a pretty big fan of their Ghost Rider film. I think that's the only one I've seen, but I remember seeing that and thinking, this is a pretty solid time. I don't know if it's a good Ghost Rider movie or a good movie, but I was having a good time.
00:06:21
Speaker
Yeah, I gave Ghost Rider like a solid B-minus, I want to say. Yeah. Max, have you seen Ghost Rider Spirits of Vengeance? No, I think somebody told me about that movie that he pees fire, the Ghost Rider. Oh, yeah. if I don't know if that does happen in the movie. They weren't fucking with me.
00:06:40
Speaker
No, that does happen. Okay. Okay, that's the only thing I know about that movie. That and I think Nicolas Cage is in it. Yeah, definitely. Yes, reprising his role as the Ghost Rider. It's got one of those giant machining platforms or mining platforms, if you've ever seen one of those, if you know what i'm talking about. It's like 60, 70 feet long.
00:07:02
Speaker
I was impressed by that. Yeah, yeah. And they also did the the two Crank movies. Yes. You guys have any feelings about the Cranks? Never seen them.
00:07:14
Speaker
I've never seen them. I am aware of them. I know that like he has to keep his adrenaline at a certain level or he dies. So it's like speed, but with a human being instead of a bus.
00:07:25
Speaker
And that's a Jason Statham film, right? He's in that. Yes. Okay. And it sort of came out, they came out at the same time as the, the transporter movies.
00:07:36
Speaker
And I was more of transporter guy than a prank guy. But they're, they're have a very cartoon sensibility. They're very much looney tunes. They're very much over the top in the same way that gamer is.
00:07:51
Speaker
I'd say even more so. But I think of sort of transporter and crank as the goofus and gallant. You know what I mean? Yeah.
00:08:03
Speaker
But anyway, do you guys want to hear about the research that I did about gamer enough about crank and transporter? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. All right.
00:08:25
Speaker
I had some context about the background of the film. Script director, actors on set. What was going on on screen? I wanna hear some details. Gossip scandal, all that shit.
00:08:37
Speaker
Can't imagine all the time.
00:08:53
Speaker
So Gamer came out September 4th, 2009. Our director is Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor. It had three taglines. You guys ready? Oh, boy.
00:09:05
Speaker
Tagline number one. In the near future, you don't live to play. You play to live. Sure. Yeah, okay.
00:09:16
Speaker
I guess. Yeah. The next two are much punchier. Okay, cool. Okay, I'm open-minded. I'm keeping an open mind. Okay, number two. Who's playing you?
00:09:29
Speaker
Okay, yeah. Yeah. I think that would be more interesting if there was more of a mystery angle this. Yeah, or like... Because we do know who's playing him. yeah. Yeah, he's quite famous. It almost sounds like a horror movie where it's just like, who is in control of my body?
00:09:44
Speaker
You know, yeah that's that's not what's going on. All right, last one. The game is real. Yeah. Yeah, I guess. Yeah.
00:09:55
Speaker
Yeah. It's at least punchy. I'll give it that. Yeah. And I can't complain about it. The game was real in the movie. The game was real. Yeah. So ah Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor are the second directing duo we've ever covered on the show. The first were, of course, Joost and Schulman from Paranormal Activity 4.
00:10:17
Speaker
ah The two of them, they met in their mid-20s when they were both in the camera department on a movie called The Keys. Came out in 2002. Yeah.
00:10:28
Speaker
They signed on as a team with an ad agency called Radical Media in 2004, and they directed commercials for Nike, Powerade, and Budweiser.
00:10:39
Speaker
so Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, you can see that being their aesthetic, ah you know, training grounds. Then they made Crank in 2006. Very big hit for them.
00:10:52
Speaker
They were famous for working on relatively small budgets and using ah prosumer digital cameras. Their trademark technique was what they called the roller dolly, which was ah just Neville Dean on rollerblades, riding around with the camera.
00:11:14
Speaker
they both would shoot a scene simultaneously. ah So they'd have two cameras going at any given time. One of them like on rollerblades, getting a wide shot. And then the other one handheld up close.
00:11:27
Speaker
Wow.
Critique of 'Gamer's' Gaming Elements
00:11:29
Speaker
Yeah. They write all of their own work except for ghost rider.
00:11:36
Speaker
So, They made gamer after a crank, but before they made crank two, but it came out after crank two. And apparently was held back for a minute.
00:11:46
Speaker
Lord knows why. well One problem that Taylor recognizes or brought up in interviews ah that the film had was that neither of them were gamers. Yeah. and that yeah Yeah. It, it, it's funny when i was watching it with my wife, Anna, and they said, ah you know, it what I like about is that you can tell these guys were gamers. I was like, I can tell that you're not a gamer.
00:12:11
Speaker
Yeah. As someone who regularly plays video games, I can tell these guys are not gamers. Yeah. And I think that ended up being a big problem for the film commercially. I think that audience could smell a fake.
00:12:26
Speaker
Now it was shot in Albuquerque. Greg, you used to live in Albuquerque. Did you recognize anything? ah Not in particular. All right. It was not quite the vibe that they were looking for, but it was the best ah situation. which You got to do.
00:12:42
Speaker
Yep. Another problem that they had is that ah Neville Dean and Taylor ru were both very hard drinkers at the time and routinely would stay up drinking all night and then go shoot an action sequence the next day where they had to flip over a snowplow.
00:12:59
Speaker
So... Such is life. Luckily, everything went fine. This was the first feature film that was shot on red one cameras, ah which is, I guess, a type of digital camera that was made by the manufacturer of Oakley's.
00:13:15
Speaker
It's pretty popular as far as video cameras go, as far as I know. Yeah, by apparently by 2016, red was used on 25% of films. They got two of the first 16 cameras that were ever built. Some of the other ones went to like Steven Soderbergh, guys like that. crazy.
00:13:33
Speaker
Yeah, but they were the first one to shoot a feature film. Yeah. And the thing that made them better than a lot of cameras at the time was that ah the they were very small in light and footage could be pulled immediately for special effects processing.
00:13:49
Speaker
Didn't have to do a bunch of rendering or whatever they had to do back in those dark days. Yeah.
00:13:57
Speaker
So when they showed, then the apparently the studio was nervous about this. Uh, so they showed the bosses, the footage that they, on the first couple days, they shot on both film and the red cameras and they showed them both. And they're like, the boss is like, Oh, the red looks pretty good.
00:14:15
Speaker
You know, it almost looks as good as the film. And, uh, they're like, actually the film was the red. They pulled the switcheroo on them. Ooh, nice ah trickery.
00:14:26
Speaker
That's right. Yeah. But still, the film didn't really resonate with audiences.
00:14:35
Speaker
It had a budget of $50 million, dollars but only pulled in $42 million at the box office. It was the only film that they ever made that didn't turn a profit.
00:14:44
Speaker
Part of this was probably because it had a hard R rating that probably made it more aspirational. Like that probably kept out a lot of the sort of young teen boys that would yeah target audience something like this.
00:14:56
Speaker
Yeah, it makes sense.
00:15:00
Speaker
but the two of them only worked together one more time, two years later on a ghost rider spirits of vengeance. Since then, Taylor has directed solo hell boy, the crooked man, I believe a direct to digital hell boy sequel and a movie called mom and dad about a mom and dad who want to kill their child.
00:15:19
Speaker
Wow. Yeah. Okay. Other science fiction films of 2009. All right. um right district nine oh that's a good one district nine yeah it's a good one i like that district nine yeah better the old district nine i think that it's weird that that was the only like good movie that he made he never really worked it out after that he yeah i don't think that guy neil blomkamp it didn't seem like he worked well with like a scaled up budget yeah yeah don't know
00:15:52
Speaker
And, you know sometimes people only you go have one hit in them, you know? Right. I've never made any movies than I made. Yeah. How about ah Moon? The David Bowie's son movie. Moon.
00:16:02
Speaker
Never saw it. Wanted to see it. ah The first ah J.J. Abrams Star Trek. Haven't seen that actually. but we did not eat ah I thought it was ah okay when I watched it on like a Saturday morning.
00:16:18
Speaker
i The box, the other movie by the guy that did Southland Tales. That's on my list. People tell me I should watch that. So we'll get there eventually. I really like Donnie Darko. I really like Southland Tales. I can't say that I like the box.
00:16:34
Speaker
Okay. that's Interesting. Interesting. I didn't like Southland Tales that much, and I thought the box dragged in the middle. Okay. I thought it was okay.
00:16:46
Speaker
Avatar. James Cameron's Avatar, 2001. I've seen that one. I've still never seen that movie. No, i'm not it's fine. You don't need to see it. feels like the moment has really passed. Yeah, if you, I mean, no ride a roller coaster, you'll have a better time, frankly.
00:17:02
Speaker
The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. You know, I wanted to see that, and I forgot it existed until this moment. That is a movie that I always mix up in my head with Mr. McGoriam's Wonder Emporium. Yeah, that's probably It's a kind of time where they would just name a movie anything, I guess. Yeah. You could never release a movie in theaters today called The Imaginarium of Barnabas. It's true. And that's the problem. That's what we need to get back That's what's wrong with cinema today. Yeah, we need to get back to Imaginariums.
00:17:32
Speaker
Terminator Salvation came out that year. I think I captioned that. It wasn't great. I bet it wasn't. And X-Men Origins Wolverine, still in their sort of pre-MCU days.
00:17:44
Speaker
I think that's the one where he goes to Japan. Or is that the other one? This the where you meet like Sabretooth and Deadpool. Okay.
Plot Intricacies of 'Gamer'
00:17:56
Speaker
I think the one where goes to Japan is just the Wolverine. Oh, yeah. You know, and I have a great story about that movie, ah which is it was one of the first movies that I went to see in the theaters with my wife after we had moved here to Wichita.
00:18:09
Speaker
And before the movie started, we looked down the aisle and a guy had taken off his shoes and his socks and was clipping his toenails in the movie theater.
00:18:21
Speaker
That was he had brought the nail clippers with him. He's really getting comfortable. That is crazy. i actually used to work in a movie theater, and I would have been really mad if I had to sweep up toenail clippings.
00:18:35
Speaker
Yeah. wonder if he left the nail clipper behind, or if he just kind of like tucked it back in his pocket. like I'm all good. Nails clipped. That's Truly, truly the most unhinged behavior I had seen in a movie theater in a long time.
00:18:49
Speaker
yeah Well, with that, you guys want to talk about the plot of Gamer? Oh, yeah. Yeah.
00:19:12
Speaker
So the first two things.
00:19:38
Speaker
so the first two things that come to us from this film or a, uh, some onscreen text that says some years from this exact moment that tells us that it's the future.
00:19:51
Speaker
Then we hear in the soundtrack, sweet dreams by Marilyn Manson. And that tells us that this movie is not going to be good. Uh, then we see ads for the games, slayers and society projected on the sides of buildings and All done digitally in post, they couldn't have put up like one actual poster or one piece of like spray painted stencil stuff.
00:20:16
Speaker
You know, just not stretching that budget, I guess. We cut to our hero, Cable, played by Gerard Butler. And he's playing his 26th match of Slayers.
00:20:30
Speaker
And this is basically him running through a war zone with a submachine gun. And just gunning down, faces bad guys until he gets to ah the save point.
00:20:43
Speaker
So let's talk about this. How did you guys feel about Gerard Butler in this movie? Let's start there. ah I think he's like serviceable in this movie. He's not my favorite part of it.
00:20:56
Speaker
but it doesn't get it a lot to do. No. Like it's kind of hard to judge. I can't say that I liked Gerard Butler in general, but I can't say that he gives a bad performance in this movie. He kind of gives the performance that this movie calls for. i don't really know what else he could possibly have done. Yeah. Like he never, he never pops. He never elevates the material, but he doesn't let it down either.
00:21:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:22
Speaker
know who does pop in this movie? Oh, tell me. Michael C. Hall. what like What is that accent he's doing? It's crazy. i just i just, you know, we can talk about that later, but like he sounds like a leghorn. It's insane.
00:21:36
Speaker
He's got a bit of like a Georgian aristocrat, like a plantation owner vibe to Yeah, and like why? His character is like a tech billionaire. like Why would he sound like that? like Was that in the script, or did Michael C. Hall just show up and decide to do that?
Final Ratings on 'Gamer'
00:21:50
Speaker
I don't know, but I love it. It's great, but it's. Yeah, he's definitely having the most fun out of it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, by a long shot. For such a goofy, like, cartoony movie, it can be very dour and very dark.
00:22:04
Speaker
Yeah. by Evidence by the fact that we have this opening action sequence where, like, 20 nameless people are just gunned down. They explode. You know, body parts flying everywhere. It's very goofy blood and guts action.
00:22:22
Speaker
uh and then also we see him running to a save point and that was the first thing where i was like you can tell this wasn't made by gamers because you wouldn't call the end of a level a save point like that doesn't make sense in this context also my thought was just like why wouldn't you say checkpoint yeah they don't know what that is no it felt that was the first like dead giveaway just like hmm yeah ah So then we cut to Gina played by Kira Cedric. She's sort of a TV personality, sort of a Oprah type, maybe.
00:22:54
Speaker
Sure. Some sort of daytime talk icon is the vibe that I get from her. And she's talking to the producers of her show, one of whom is played by ah Q from Star Trek Next Generations.
00:23:09
Speaker
And the other one played by House's best friend, the private detective.
00:23:15
Speaker
And they're both talking about an interview that she's setting up with Ken Castle, ah Michael C. Hall, about his exciting video games that have swept the nation by storm, Slayers and Society.
00:23:32
Speaker
Now, ah Slayers, ah all of these work on the technology of putting nanobots into people's central nervous system. And it ends up replacing their, ah like, central. but There's a lot of complicated jargon.
00:23:47
Speaker
ah But now all these people can be puppeteered by computers.
00:23:53
Speaker
And all the people in Slayers are people who are on death row. So that's why. And if they make it through 30 matches, then they go free. So that's why people volunteer.
00:24:05
Speaker
That's why nobody has a problem with this. It all checks out. boy, it's almost like this could actually happen. I would also like to point out that all of these things you have just said have been delivered to us in like the first six minutes of the film.
00:24:21
Speaker
Yes. They really slam out this exposition. Yeah. A lot. I feel like they're doing that a lot where it's just like we're going to watch an action sequence, then have five, six minutes of exposition, then another action sequence, then five or six minutes of exposition. It's a really oddly paced and ah the motion throughout it, the locomotion through the movie is very weird.
00:24:45
Speaker
That is true. And I wish the action was more memorable. I hardly remember any of the action in this movie.
00:24:58
Speaker
In some ways, I think you could say that that might be commentary on entertainment and or video games, but it also doesn't make it interesting commentary.
00:25:10
Speaker
ah Yeah.
00:25:13
Speaker
That's true. I'm sorry. I cut you off, Max. Go on. I was going to say, I don't know, I do really like like this the the camera work and the editing style of this movie, which is maybe kind of a divising thing devising divisive thing to say.
00:25:27
Speaker
Because like obviously it's also kind of like off-putting. It makes the action sequences fundamentally kind of difficult to read. i think I was like fascinated by a particular kind of like really frenetic, weird film editing that you saw sometimes in movies in the 2000s. It kind of reminds me of the way that like some sequences in the early Saw movies look.
00:25:46
Speaker
Where, like, if they don't, like, like, editing that, like, is, you know, quick and cuts around a lot is obviously something that exists. But, like, there's this particular kind of approach to it that I find both, like, I don't know, like, it is exciting, but it is also, like, nauseating and confusing. and um And I guess, like, I'm someone who, like, I'm younger and, like, I was, like, a kid when this movie came out.
00:26:07
Speaker
yeah And I was, like, I was eight. um So, like, to me, I think, like, there's, like, an interesting, like, retro cool factor that, like, probably this movie would not have to somebody who was already like a grown adult in 2009.
00:26:20
Speaker
Yeah. i was 28 when this came out. And by then this had already been like, sort of like, uh, yeah, it's more of this like post Jason Bourne style action. And it, I think also just in terms of like the mise en scene of the action, they're much better. It's sort of like these sort of,
00:26:37
Speaker
Like the crank movies had these very comedic stunts, and I think they're much better at that style action than they are gunplay action. Like this sort of like military style, like go hide behind cover, get up behind cover, shoot a guy, duck down behind cover stuff.
00:26:50
Speaker
I don't think it was as they were able to get as creative and as fun with it as they were in their other stuff. ah But in terms of like this era and this aesthetic of like editing, matching visual actions, I think this is like a really good example of that.
00:27:07
Speaker
And if that like it also I've been watching a lot of AMVs lately for some reason. yeah We have that like same sort of pacing of AMVs where it definitely is like overwhelming.
00:27:20
Speaker
But that's the point. It's supposed to be overwhelming. ah Now, so then we get the the interview with Castle and Castle's explains more about info dumping. all All the people in society are like actors who are controlled by people at home.
00:27:39
Speaker
They must get paid something to do this. And the economics of this situation make absolutely no sense to me. But I don't want to look at it too closely. And then, ah yeah, all the people in Slayers are, ah you know, volunteers to escape death row.
00:27:58
Speaker
And there are also NPCs in the game who obviously they aren't in shape enough for combat. But if they survive one game without getting shot. Then they, you know, get to go free and lots of little details like that.
00:28:11
Speaker
And also all the profits from slayers funds the entire prison system. And so that's how the U S government was able to sign on. Everybody loves it. What a wonderful future and more information. John Cable Tillman is our most successful slayer and he's controlled by Simon.
00:28:26
Speaker
And, and it seems like, uh, uh, reporter Gina is going to be trying to ask them like tough questions, but also you see very explicitly that her show is sponsored by Slayers.
00:28:37
Speaker
So it never really like gets over the hump. Uh, and then her broadcast is interrupted by the humans who are a gang of, uh, anti, uh, castle,
00:28:51
Speaker
ah ah Freedom fighters, terrorists, something. Hackers. Hackers. ah They don't like what's going on. Activists. Anyway, back in prison, Cable meets Freak, who is ah kind of squirrely guy played by John Leguizamo.
00:29:08
Speaker
ah Always nice to see him. Love to him. Doesn't have very much to do in this movie. This character easily could have been completely written out.
00:29:18
Speaker
He reminded me of, I've seen 12 Monkeys.
00:29:23
Speaker
Yeah, there's like there's like a guy that whenever he goes back to prison, he's like, hey, how's it going in there, bot? He reminded me of this like kind of like yeah voice of the consciousness in a way, or like someone to speak to when you're kind of going crazy in ah in an incarceration situation.
00:29:40
Speaker
Yeah. yeah But Gerard Butler never like gives him anything. like they write yeah You don't really learn anything from it either. so Yeah. I think like the, the Jerry Butler character is like not complex enough that like giving him somebody else to bounce off of, like even really does anything i think because yeah that that really capable of holding a conversation that isn't just him being like, I want my wife back.
00:30:05
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. He doesn't seem to have that much interiority. No. yeah I bet he cannot picture and rotate the apple. So um back in his cell, he's sort even' in this in this isolation cell, and a lady gives him a picture of his wife and daughter.
00:30:25
Speaker
He's like, oh, can you autograph it? Which is weird. But he's like yeah, okay, sure. But then the lady also takes a small sample of his blood.
00:30:36
Speaker
Interesting. What's up with that? Who can say that? And then we finally get to meet his wife, who is allegedly named Angie. But I always just wrote down to my notes, wife.
00:30:47
Speaker
ah She works in society, the video game. So she takes a bus to society people. And there, everybody's making out and dancing to ah Bad Touch by the Bloodhound Gang.
00:31:01
Speaker
This is my favorite part of the movie. This part rules. Yeah. No, it's pretty great. Bad touch will be our outro this week. And it's weird that those are both songs that came out like 10 years before. this Yeah. Yeah.
00:31:14
Speaker
Like they feel sort of, current, but they're actually like 10 years out of date. Uh, time just gets dilated. Uh, we find out that wife is being controlled by a big fat guy. And I'm going to say some of the most fat phobic footage I've seen in a film in a long time. Genuinely sucks.
00:31:31
Speaker
Yeah. Truly thumbs down to it. Um, And then ah the wife is about to get fucked in public, which is something that apparently routinely happens in this game. But during the course of this movie, gets interrupted every time.
00:31:43
Speaker
You have to assume that she has had sex in this video game dozens, hundreds of times already. But the only time we've seen this movie are the times that it's been interrupted. But she's also about to get fucked in front of a billboard of her husband's face.
00:31:57
Speaker
So... I really hope whatever sound this. Okay. I'm going to talk about the economics of this for second. Sure. Yeah. Okay. Okay. ah Because every player is controlling one person.
00:32:09
Speaker
Their subscription fees have to be enough to employ a full-time employee. Plus whatever the middleman is taking out, whatever is making ah John Michael C. Hall, his, ah you know, billions of dollars with their user base. If he said three quarters of a million people,
00:32:29
Speaker
So
00:32:33
Speaker
a subscription to society has got to be costing you like millions of dollars. Yeah, that's possible. I think also like advertising, microtransactions, things of this nature are going to be added. think he's running on the Facebook model.
00:32:48
Speaker
I mean, i he seems basically like Mark. is I kept thinking of Mark Zuckerberg during this, basically. So, yeah, I kind of feel like that is kind of what they're going for. Yeah. I could see it all being a bubble that was just going to burst in the next five years anyway. That's possible.
00:33:05
Speaker
Um, yeah yeah, yeah. He's just running on VC. That's how he's paying
00:33:12
Speaker
all these people. Yeah. Yeah. Just, I just need 5 billion more dollars, bro. Another season of society, even it can roll it out wide. ah So then we cut to the next game and, uh, Oh yeah.
00:33:29
Speaker
She's about to get fucked in front of the billboard of her husband, but when the humans interrupt the feed and shut down the game, these hackers, they're back on it. Uh, so and then we go to the next game and cable fights a bunch of people and he survives.
00:33:41
Speaker
And on the drive back to prison, someone asks, who's controlling us? And now we finally get to spend some time with Simon, the titular gamer.
00:33:54
Speaker
m He's not really a very important character, is he? No. The movie also kind of does not need this guy. Like, I'm glad he's in the movie because it's like, just the whole, like, way this character is handled is so funny to me. But like,
00:34:11
Speaker
He kind of almost he has like almost no effect on the plot. No, no. And honestly, if you're going to call the movie gamer, he should be the main character. Yeah. I mean, his whole point is to like prove who he is and then say, actually, I'll stop doing stuff.
00:34:27
Speaker
Yeah. It's really weird. Yeah. See, what they should have done is they should have made the movie about him. And then because he's such a high level gamer, he ends up finding out some sort of secret about the game.
00:34:42
Speaker
And so they end up sending him in the game. And now you get now he has to prove that he could really hack it. That's what they should have done. and You should write the sequel. Yeah, I'm going to write a game or two.
00:34:53
Speaker
Yeah. Where someone restarts gamer and like, actually Slayers was a pretty good idea. We still got a lot of the infrastructure. Somebody's running a private server of Slayers.
00:35:05
Speaker
Yeah. And and yeah set it in China. Then I can get that Chinese money to back me you There you go.
00:35:13
Speaker
So, yeah, Simon is your typical, like, 2009, 17-year-old gamer. You call those things gay and retarded, it's unfortunate. And he gets phone calls from hot babes and a pair of hot twins that show him their breasts, and they want to buy cable off of him for $100 million. And he's like, no, I'm taking him to the championship.
00:35:37
Speaker
We're going all the way.
00:35:40
Speaker
except he has like a squeaky teen voice. yeah And then the humans call him up. ah Humans, the spokesperson for the humans, I should mention, is, of course, Ludacris.
00:35:52
Speaker
Yeah. And his character's name is Brother. Yeah. Normal. Normal racial politics in this movie all around, I think. yeah Oh, yeah. I'd say to say everything about this movie is pretty normal.
00:36:04
Speaker
Definitely. Yeah. But brother tells Simon that if you want to talk to Cable, we can show you how. And he's like, I guess that would be cool. Like, like if I could talk to Master Chief, it'd be like if Master Chief could be my best friend.
00:36:21
Speaker
So a back at Castle's lair, Castle, it's unfortunate that Castle and Cable are the names of our two main characters. Yeah. Also put that out there. Yeah. Yeah.
00:36:33
Speaker
So back at Dexter's lair, Dexter looks at a giant television that is showing Terry Crews screaming and flexing his muscles. yeah And he's very excited because he's going to send him after Cable because he wants to kill Cable.
00:36:49
Speaker
And we're not quite sure why at this point, but it seems like it's personal. And he explains that the advantage that ah Terry Crews is going to have is is that no one's going to be controlling him, and so there's no signal delay. There's no ping, as they call it.
00:37:06
Speaker
So he'll be operating a fraction of a second faster in all of his decision-making and killing stuff.
00:37:15
Speaker
So even in the distant year of 2034, they have not solved this problem. Latency is difficult, you know. Yeah. I mean, what can you do? So back in prison, Freak tells Cable that Terry Crews has turned himself in after doing a bunch of murder crimes, seemingly as if he wanted to be on Slayers.
00:37:37
Speaker
Boy, this guy is twisted. Yeah. He's like that exchange student in Battle Royale. Never seen that. You've never seen Battle Royale? I've actually never seen Battle Royale you know either. You've never seen Battle Royale? No wonder that didn't land. That was a perfectly apt description. You guys need to see Battle Royale.
00:37:56
Speaker
Okay. Listen, I'll write it down the top of the page. and Yes, top of the page, Greg. Now, let's see. ah Cable, he goes and he tries out some new homing cluster grenades that Simon bought for them.
00:38:13
Speaker
It's great. Pretty fun. And he has a chat with the the prison guard about, you know, the player controls the moves, but he's the one that pulls the trigger.
00:38:24
Speaker
I guess to understand this. Yeah, I don't know what that's supposed to mean or like what the significance of that really is. Just like, yeah, i guess. Yeah. i but like also no i think it's to absolve the players from the murders that they're committing. Like yeah Simon is not a 17 year old boy that actually murdered 40 people in the last 30 weeks.
00:38:47
Speaker
The control aspect of this movie is really bizarre to me because it's like, I don't know. like like it's cable. It's like, but it's that 17 year old, right? Like it's not cable at all. Yeah.
00:38:59
Speaker
Yeah. And so it's like, confusing to me. It didn't make any sense. Like why, who I'm supposed to who is the protagonist when I'm watching this game? Am I supposed to be thinking of them as a team?
00:39:13
Speaker
You know, it because it's so vague and makes so little sense, like logistically, it it's very hard to understand it. But obviously when you're watching it, you're not supposed to be thinking about this that at all.
00:39:26
Speaker
No, no, no. i can't say that I was really like turning that over in my mind a lot when I was watching it. So I watched it with someone else this time. I typically watch them alone and we had just played a lot of video games together. And so we stopped playing video games to watch this. We're like, wait a minute, though. This doesn't make sense.
00:39:43
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. This is nothing like video games. No. Now, back inside the prison, Hackman harasses Cable by being like, look at my hands are covered in blood. I just murdered somebody, which is like a weird way to taunt another guy that murders a bunch of people.
00:40:01
Speaker
But he's like, I'm going to kill your family. And also he sings, I have no strings from Pinocchio. So Cable's now getting a little spooked. So it's scary when people sing songs from Pinocchio. It's a scary that's a scary film. You know, he went inside the whale, ni got turned into a donkey.
00:40:21
Speaker
The donkey thing was very scary. And if if I remember right, I'm pretty sure that Terry Crews is nude. So I think anyone like singing to me while nude without the nudity being important in any way would really kind of freak me out a little bit. it be little If nudity were important, would that help?
00:40:35
Speaker
Maybe, because maybe they're trying to seduce me, but this is just like, no, I don't care about it. just don't happen to be wearing clothes. But anyway, it's you know it's like, oh, that's bizarre. All right. Now, what if they're just using their their genitals as like a prop in the song? then that's a Then I get back to like kind of being into it a little bit, because it's like, oh, it's like a show.
00:40:54
Speaker
okay yeah Okay. Like a puppetry of the penis? in tune Exactly. yeah Exactly. It's just like, oh, that's kind of fun. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So those are the rules if you're going singing to Greg in the nude, everybody.
00:41:05
Speaker
So there we go. ah The next game, Simon talks to Cable via a mod that he's installed. I don't know why the servers allow players to install mods on these games. making Anyway, ah now ah they obviously they both have different perspectives on the event that's happening.
00:41:25
Speaker
ah You know, Simon's like, this is awesome. You're radical. We're going all the way to the top. And Cable's like, people are dying. I need to find my wife. ah They're in the middle of a big dirt bike arena.
00:41:39
Speaker
And ah the freak is there as an NPC. The NPCs just sort of do repetitive actions. Which is just sort of sweeping. And he instantly gets murked and dies.
00:41:51
Speaker
RIP. RIP to the freak. There was only so many freaks in this world and I guess God needed another freak. The guys keep talking ah about like how, whether or not this is fucked up. And ah then Hackman, AKA Terry Cruz shows up and he almost kills cable.
00:42:10
Speaker
But then the game stops it. And I'm not a hundred percent sure why. I feel like I missed something. I feel like I did too. I think Matt, when I was watching with him, he I think the timer ran out. i was like, I didn't know there was a timer, but okay. Yeah.
00:42:22
Speaker
Yeah. don't remember like something definitely happens, but it's like, I don't remember if something that they actually bothered to set up earlier in the movie or like, it's just something they kind of pull out of their ass.
00:42:33
Speaker
Yeah. But all of a sudden, yeah, just the game stops. Yeah. Uh, as, as camel's getting dragged away, he does mutter one last time to Simon, turn me loose kid.
00:42:47
Speaker
Which would be cooler if like when he got turned loose, he went like Wolverine on everybody. But instead, he's just doing the same stuff he was doing before. Yeah. That would have been like a really cool thing to happen that doesn't.
00:43:00
Speaker
now Meanwhile, ah wife goes to the child ah government agency that has taken her child custody from her.
00:43:12
Speaker
man, put the kid in foster care, allegedly with a very rich family somewhere. And she's like, I want my my daughter back. And the guy's like, ah you're a pornographer. So no, which is apt and does suck.
00:43:27
Speaker
So kudos to a Gamer for being on the right side of history on that. Yeah. Overall, a movie that is definitely very respectful to women the time.
00:43:38
Speaker
oh definitely. Definitely. say Say what you want. It respects sex workers' parental rights. Yeah. In this one very specific context. Yeah.
00:43:51
Speaker
When their husband has been framed for murder and is a world-famous game avatar. Mm-hmm. So ah back at Simon's place, Simon buys some body armor for his next mod for the game. And obviously because he's starting to care about Cable, he's being a little more productive. Buy him a little body armor. I think it's very sweet.
00:44:11
Speaker
ah And then the humans hack into him again, and they convince him to install another mod that will let Cable take control, which I guess in the terms of like...
00:44:23
Speaker
a gaming community would be like if I turned myself off and let a computer controlled AI take over my Fortnite character, I guess. Something like that. So back in the prison, this mysterious woman that visited before is back.
00:44:38
Speaker
She visits cable again and asks her ah if she can get him drunk. And so she hides vodka in his gear. And before the game starts, he chugs the bottle of vodka and,
00:44:51
Speaker
And then Simon turns him loose and then he sort of starts some stumbling around drunk. oh Would have been a great opportunity for some drunken master style action.
00:45:01
Speaker
But unfortunately he just sort of shoots people and runs around. That's true. Yeah. but he eventually finds an ethanol fueled pickup truck and he vomits up.
00:45:12
Speaker
Yes. No, this is pretty good. Yeah. Good plan. probably would worked better with more vodka. Probably. Uh, he vomits all all the vodka that, uh, he drank and also pisses into the gas tank.
00:45:27
Speaker
This is your classic Neville Dean Taylor stuff. If this is what it's for gamer for you, you got to check out crank and crank tube. then starts up the truck. Terry Crews jumps on the side and then he brushes him off on a brutalist column on his way out of a parking lot and then breaks out of the game and escapes.
00:45:49
Speaker
The game lists him as fragged. Simon's perfect record is now ruined. What? Oh man. Why do they have a car in there? It's a great question.
00:46:00
Speaker
i guess to explode. Yeah. That's pretty good. That's pretty good thought. Yeah. Are all cars ethanol powered in this future? Just this one. It's a great question. My wife said when I was like, why would they have this giant ethanol fueled pickup truck? like it's the future. It's like, oh, you're right.
00:46:16
Speaker
Yeah. It's some years in the future. That's right. yeah it's It's sometime after now. I do love that. They like they don't want to like. pin down what year it is no because like that would be too much like that would be too much like they would to think about that too hard and and like that would be too much it's like you know just uh some years and then this way it'll last in perpetuity you know what i mean you can watch the future i did read somewhere 2034 somebody at some point might say 2034 okay sure you know we're not too far
00:46:51
Speaker
No, we and you know what? I think as we get closer and closer, gamer is becoming more and more disturbingly accurate. Uh, now, meanwhile, uh, the wife gets dressed by the great big fat customer that she has, uh, cycling through a bunch of different, uh, random revealing outfits. Uh, and then cable meets Alison Lohman, uh, who is playing trace is the woman that was visiting him in prison. Alison Lohman is also the wife of one of the two directors. I cannot remember which one. Okay.
00:47:25
Speaker
I want to say Neville Dean.
00:47:28
Speaker
but they hop on the back of her motorcycle and, uh, ride through a bunch of like tunnels and hallways to the humans hideout, which is of course a video arcade classic.
00:47:40
Speaker
So the humans tell him that they want his help taking down castle. he says, sure thing I'm in, ah but first he has to find his wife. ah He finds her about to have sex with a guy, an avatar named Rick rape, which is quite unfortunate.
00:47:56
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so, uh, cable grabs the guy and snaps his spine, which is a fucked up thing to do to just another actor. Uh, and then he, uh, tries to talk to his wife, but his wife is still being controlled by the fat guy, which was both very disturbing and very funny.
00:48:14
Speaker
Yeah. You know, I feel like Rick rapist would have a better like rhythm to it than just Rick rape. Yeah. be Right. You might be right. I mean, either way, it doesn't help the vibes.
00:48:26
Speaker
No, no. I did open up like the the Wikipedia page, I'm looking at the cast page, and I'm seeing that the twins who try to get Simon to sell cable to them, or to someone, I can't remember the details of this, but anyway, apparently those characters are credited as the cum dumpstas.
00:48:44
Speaker
Yeah. spoke Hey, you K U M D U M P S T A Z. That was a detail I had forgotten somehow. So there that was their handle. I believe that there.
00:48:55
Speaker
Let's just take a quick moment here. There's a lot of like genital talk. in this film. A lot of genital talk. Like I've never heard someone use cock strong as a, like a measure of distance or something. would just like, it came up in a weird way. was I'm sorry. What was, what was that term?
00:49:12
Speaker
At one point, a woman is told to stop menstruating. yeah And I'm pretty sure there was something about like, there's many references to balls, but there was one like, this yeah, pulling your balls together. Yeah. Pulling your balls together. That's what it was. It was just like, what does some of this even mean?
00:49:29
Speaker
yeah future that's i guess that's a fair play filter has shifted you know the classic that's a neville dean and taylor for you is it okay yeah oh for sure okay uh now let's see datatata meanwhile uh no there we go rick rape of course cable snacks his spine tries to talk to his wife through the fat guy and the fat guy is like i love you and He's like, stop talking through my wife. It's very disturbing.
00:50:01
Speaker
And then Cruz shows up and grabs a wife, tries to take her. They get in an elevator together and the wife is like, stab these guys.
00:50:12
Speaker
It'll be cool because this big fat guy is just so fucked up and evil. yeah But then ah Cable grabs the wife back and they run through a rave where they're shooting a bunch of people in a rave.
00:50:24
Speaker
but none of the people at the rave react because they're all being controlled by gamers. And then they run into Gina who brings them back to the humans. And the humans have a cure for wife's nanotechnology.
00:50:37
Speaker
They can't remove it because it's replaced a certain amount of her brain, but they can deactivate it from receiving signals.
00:50:47
Speaker
They then hook cable up to a memory machine. Yeah. Jeez, so much is going on. Yeah. Yeah. And yet so little at the same time. Yeah. It's boggling my mind. The summary is taking this long because this doesn't feel like a movie where the plot is important. And yet there is so much of it.
00:51:05
Speaker
Yeah. It always takes place in between action sequences. Yeah. Yeah, they really only have two gears. um We get a flashback of ah Cable shooting his best friend after they've both been beta testers for the nanotechnology.
00:51:21
Speaker
Castle was controlling him while he did it, and that's why he's on death row. Now we've got Cable's full backstory. He's really sad about it, but then his wife comes to, and then he gets to kiss his wife, so he's feeling a little bit better. They decide he's going to go try and track down Castle and kill him.
00:51:35
Speaker
So the first place he goes to is his office at night. Makes perfect sense. Love it. yeah Yep. When he gets there, ah Michael C. Hall does a dance number to I've Got You Under My Skin, along with a bunch of convicts that he has control over. I genuinely love this part of the film. Yeah, this is a really good scene. This was great. and Yeah.
00:51:56
Speaker
And at first they didn't like when Neville Dean and Taylor told that everybody, this is what they want to do. A lot of people apparently were not on board, but Michael C hall was a song and dance man. so he's like, well, I'll give it a shot. And then everybody was like, actually, this is going to be really cool. Yeah, no, it turned out really nice.
00:52:13
Speaker
Yeah. It does sort of transition very smoothly from a little soft shoe dance number to a fight scene between cable and assorted groups of thugs.
00:52:26
Speaker
Nice to get some fisticuffs in here after we've been having a lot of gun action. Yeah, I think this chunk of the movie is maybe the most successful at doing what it's trying to do. I would agree. where's like There's other stuff in the movie that I like.
00:52:39
Speaker
in part just like, well, this is just really strange or ridiculous. but I'm like, this is kind of some effective filmmaking. There's there stuff here that really works. Yeah, yeah. I'd say it definitely ends on a high note.
00:52:50
Speaker
Now, Cable kills all the goons, but he can't kill Castle because it turns out Castle has, in fact, replaced 98% of his brain with nanotechnology that is used solely for transmitting, and it's so powerful it can still control...
00:53:05
Speaker
Cable, even though Cable's nanotechnology has been turned off. What a twist. to i have a fan theory to propose. Please. But what if it's what if it's the nanites replacing 98% of his brain that made Dexter turn Southern?
00:53:19
Speaker
Like, maybe he didn't sound like that before, but like, once he replaced 98% of his brain with nanites, he just started talking like that. I really love that concept. Yeah, it's like when an English person tries to do an American accent and they overcorrect into Southern.
00:53:36
Speaker
it's The nanites are doing like, that's a human accent. Hilarious. Yeah. And I'll get you a Coca-Cola. Yeah, that would happen to anybody whose brain was 98% nanites. Yeah, that's the tell.
00:53:49
Speaker
ah So he also has ah Cable's daughter. Turns out he was the wealthy adoptee. That was his final ace in the hole. And then he leads him to his private basketball court.
00:54:01
Speaker
Of course, love their final showdown. and he explains that, uh, uh, yeah, he's going to make him kill his daughter. They fight for a little while. Uh, the fight ends up being broadcast on international television somehow, uh, including, uh,
00:54:19
Speaker
I think the humans hacked into something. yeah I think so. yeah Yeah. You see Kara Sedgwick and the other one on the motorcycle, like press some keys and then it's like, see what you think now, castle. And then everybody can see the thing.
00:54:33
Speaker
Oh, and a bunch of the other humans got killed off camera at some point. Yeah, they just all died. yeah And then also Simon logs back in and he's like, I'm going to help.
00:54:44
Speaker
In case you're wondering where the titular gamer was in all this. And so with both Simon and... ah uh cable holding on to a knife while michael c hall is also holding on the knife and they're trying to plunge it in know the wrestling over the knife oh yeah and and gerald looks at uh gerald god gerald cable cable looks at dexter and he says imagine me stabbing you in the guts and imagine my knife going into your guts and you're making it happen.
00:55:19
Speaker
May imagine it being real, make it real that my knife is in your guts. And then that really gets in his head. It's like, try not to think about a pink elephant. And, uh, he gets stabbed in the guts and then he dies.
00:55:33
Speaker
RIP. Yeah. RIP. I guess the nanobots need blood. Uh, so then, ah he tells, uh, cable tells like the two tech guys that are also in the basketball court for some reason. It's like, Hey, can you turn off the nanobots and set us free?
00:55:55
Speaker
And they're like, yeah, sure. I don't care. And then they turn him off and then the movie's over the end. Woo. Yay. So, yeah final thoughts.
00:56:06
Speaker
Five-star ratings. Where do you guys land on gamer in terms of watchability and weirdness? Greg, can you kick us off? So I honestly, I have a tough one with this one. as far as watchability, I'm going to say three and a half, I think, just for lack of anything better to say. I think there's a number of people are really going to kick out of this.
00:56:25
Speaker
Safe score, safe score. Yeah, I think a number of people are going to be turned off by it. I think it's pretty watchable, but I could see someone being like, I can't actually. I'd be like, yeah, it makes sense. It's pretty dramatic, you know.
00:56:35
Speaker
um and Weirdness
00:56:40
Speaker
It's a strange movie. It's a really strange movie, but I don't know if it's that weird, if that makes sense. I think so. Yeah. So I'm going to say two and a half, I think.
00:56:51
Speaker
there's there is There are certainly some very weird aspects of this movie, but it doesn't feel too like crazy because it's satire. I think it's trying to hew to reality, so it is still grounded in that.
00:57:07
Speaker
Fair enough. I gave it about a four on watchability. I thought it was fun. it was fast paced. It was nice and short. I love a short movie. It didn't take itself too clear, seriously.
00:57:19
Speaker
ah But I did find the action often kind of uninspired. And I did find ah several images confrontingly gross and unpleasant.
00:57:30
Speaker
and So that knocks it down in terms of watchability for a little bit for me. ah Weirdness. I, gave it also about a three, you know, it was more sort of specifically stylized and sort of unusual than it is. I want to say weird, I think yeah similar to where you were going at.
00:57:48
Speaker
um But it is weird that it is this sort of like very, very, bro coded social satire that I also found myself agreeing with surprisingly often.
00:58:00
Speaker
That's one of the weird things about the movies. I don't know if I would say it is a good movie, but I would say that it has, it it's like got some things correct. Yeah. Surprisingly on the right side of history, I think is the weirdest thing about gamers. Yeah.
00:58:15
Speaker
And what about you, Max? I'm going to, i think bravely, give it a 4.5 for watchability. knife This movie is very bad, and there is a lot about it to dislike.
00:58:27
Speaker
I mean, just like on a politics level, it's kind of racist. There's all this stuff with the fat guy, which is like, that is the stuff that is the most unpleasant to watch. Because not only is it like you know it's offensive, but it's also just like, I don't really see why this this is not, you know. It's too much.
00:58:43
Speaker
It's very lazy. Yeah. Yeah. But there are, like, moments of just, like, i don't know, like, I think, like, the the bad touch montage to me just, like, taps into, like, some, maybe it is just, like, the the AMV part of my brain. Like, there are moments in this movie that, like, make me, like, really excited and really, a get like, make me really excited and really engaged.
00:59:05
Speaker
And there is something about it as, like, an aesthetic object that I just find really interesting. it feels like kind of of a piece in a way. And some of these movies are better and some of these movies are worse, like, I think like the the the better version of a movie like this is like Dread or... like ah Sucker Punch, I would say. is Sucker Punch, yeah.
00:59:25
Speaker
And like it feels kind of of a piece with that kind of thing. It kind of reminds me of Southland Tales in some moments too, yeah in terms of like its aesthetics and its attempts at you know social satire.
00:59:37
Speaker
and like i don't know, it's yeah like i feel like like late late two thousand s early this was like a type of movie that existed And ah they were, these movies were largely not successful.
00:59:48
Speaker
And now we don't make them anymore. So I think like, again, like somebody like me who's younger, it's like, oh, this is like this weird, like, not very well regarded era of filmmaking, but that is like very aesthetically distinct.
01:00:00
Speaker
And like, there is something to like these, you know, themes of of social decay or whatever. Yeah. So yeah, 4.5 for me on watchability. Yeah. I would say, again, like there are other movies like this. It's not that weird.
01:00:13
Speaker
i guess I would get... it I think 2.5 is reasonable. And there is stuff about it where it's like... Even though it's... It's hard for me to say. it's in some ways, it's unusual in comparison to like movies at large. It definitely does stuff where it's like... I don't think movies are supposed to do that. That's an unconventional approach to sort of...
01:00:35
Speaker
the problem of filmmaking, but there's no, like, I understand why they made the choices they made. i think I understand like what they were trying to do with this movie. There's things in it that are kind of surprising, but there's nothing about it. That's like baffling to me.
01:00:50
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right down that in middle zone. I think it's got a lot of really good elements. It's interesting that it's like it's called Gamer because it's more about consumerism than video games, I feel like.
01:01:01
Speaker
And if feel like if they had been able to focus it more toward that, we would end up all liking it a little more or holding it in higher regard. It feels just a touch confused at times.
01:01:12
Speaker
But it has some really interesting stuff to say. Well... well Let's talk a little bit more about where gamer lands and sort of the larger pantheon of ah movies about gamers in our next segment.
01:01:30
Speaker
Trends in film.
01:01:49
Speaker
Trends in film, they do happen. Trends in film. Trends in film, that's the segment.
01:02:00
Speaker
Trends in film.
01:02:15
Speaker
All right. So i sort of was able to break down gamer films by era. Okay. So our first era
01:02:28
Speaker
Gamers and video gaming takes place sort of in the realm of science fiction and fantasies. And even, I would say, going back to the earliest iteration that I could find, 1975's Tommy and with Pinball as a proto-video game.
01:02:41
Speaker
Almost in in the realm of Fable. You know what I mean? That's where we're starting. Then the next big one was 1982's Tron. ah Flynn being our first video gamer of the silver screen, I would say, our first definitive gamer on screen.
01:03:00
Speaker
Then you get ah nineteen eighty three s War games where, you know, video games end up leading us almost to the brink of nuclear war, ah but also showing our first online gaming with the ah Matthew Broderick logging into Bolton Woods.
01:03:18
Speaker
Then 1984, you get Cloak and Dagger, the Dabney Coleman movie. yeah I don't know what that is. It is wild. It was shot in San Antonio. It stars the kid from Flight of the Navigator, I think.
01:03:32
Speaker
I saw the theater and have no recollection of it because I was probably like two. It was, he like, i think was the first cartridge gamer on film. He got an Atari cartridge and then the main character that was called cloak and dagger and was a spy game.
01:03:49
Speaker
And then the main character was Dabney Coleman. And he came to life and like guided him through this sort of spy situation. He found himself in. It's not bad. ah Also 1984, you get the last star fighter where video games end up being a ah testing ground for real world skills.
01:04:07
Speaker
Also 1985, you get the dungeon master, a horror anthology where video games are portals to other worlds and a passport to adventure. o
01:04:18
Speaker
Then, so that was our sort of sci-fi fantasy era. Then we get one brief flip of the video gamer as the star of a family film with The Wizard in 1989.
01:04:29
Speaker
yeah Obviously, with Nintendo behind it, they're go to be shooting for an entire family. They want a full family picture. So that makes sense. and was Also, with Nintendo being behind it, probably one of the more authentic video game movies of the era, I want to say.
01:04:43
Speaker
Then in the 90s, video game movies started to become more about horror. right You start seeing them in The Lawnmower Man. m and I guess ah guess that counts.
01:04:56
Speaker
You play video games? I'm just thinking of what happens in The Lawnmower Man. That's what happens when you play video games. Definitely. Yeah. You become a ah hyper genius that's evil.
01:05:08
Speaker
ah Or in 1994's Brain Scan, where the game itself was evil and it was making you evil. How about that? Hate it when that happens. Or 1999's Existence, where video games change our very selves. That's a great film. That's a great film. It is a great film.
01:05:26
Speaker
Yeah. And then The Next Generation had more people like going into the video game and the horror of getting lost into a video game world. had Spy Kids three d Game Over in in 2005.
01:05:40
Speaker
hellrazer hell world in two thousand five and gamer in 2009. All these about getting trapped in a video game and how bad that actually would be. And then starting in the teens, video games are fun again.
01:05:56
Speaker
They're fun adventures for everybody. You got Racket Ralph in 2012. You got Pixels in 2015. You got Jumanji Welcome to the Jungle in 2017.
01:06:07
Speaker
Ready Player One 2019. Video games are, now they're even nostalgic. by 2019. And so, yeah, that's what I was able to find out in my history of ah video games on film.
01:06:22
Speaker
Is there anything that I left off? And keep in mind, this not video game adaptation. Yeah, yeah. This is talk me about mortal car it's movies about gamers. I'm trying to think if there's any game. Well, I mean, like in a strange way, Quigley was a movie about video game makers.
01:06:39
Speaker
Absolutely. and Quigley did his fair share of gaming and Quigley. That's right. Max, have you ever seen Quigley? No, I have not. It's a movie where Gary Busey dies and he comes back as a Pomeranian.
01:06:51
Speaker
Yeah. And he plays video games. The Pomeranian. He plays video games. The Pomeranian. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Oh, I can think of one actually. a Relaxer, the Joel Patrikus movie.
01:07:03
Speaker
I've never heard Basically, it's like a a a guy who's like brother... it's like He's leading the house and he's like, oh, you... like like he dares him to like sit on the couch until he can like beat this particular video game level and he's like sitting there decaying. It's like this weird little... and He's becoming increasingly decrepit as he like dedicates all of his time to trying to beat this video game level.
01:07:29
Speaker
um And then ah in the Paul Verhoeven movie L, I think the main the main character of that works at... like a video a company that is making a video game but also like the way that the video game looks in that movie is comically like 10 years out of date for when the movie came out to about so i don't think paul verhoeven is much of a gamer either yeah no and i suppose we'd be remiss if we didn't mention the matrix at all no of course oh yeah yeah you know but that's obviously its own thing and and the fact that you know mr anderson was a gamer i think feel like is a relatively minor part yeah yeah
01:08:06
Speaker
Well, do you guys want to play a game? Yeah. Good, because that's what we're doing. We're going to play a little this, that, or the other. That's right.
01:08:37
Speaker
One of three.
01:08:41
Speaker
I ask myself, what will they answer? Will it be A, B or C?
01:08:53
Speaker
A, B or C? And each time I ask you question, there's one thing that I want to know. Is it this, is it that, or is it the other?
01:09:09
Speaker
Is it this, is it that, or is it the other?
01:09:20
Speaker
That's right. We're playing this, that, or the other. And ah so one thing that I found in my research was that ah for the movie Crank, Gerard Butler had actually auditioned for that lead role. That could have gone to him.
01:09:31
Speaker
But instead it went to Jason Statham. So what I'm going to do is I'm going read you a title of a film and a brief plot description. And I want you to tell me if that movie starred Jason Statham,
01:09:43
Speaker
Gerard Butler or somebody else. And if it's somebody else, you can try and guess who that somebody else is for a bonus point. Okay. And ah this is a buzz in game. You'll buzz in by saying your own name.
01:09:57
Speaker
And if you get it wrong, your opponent will have the chance to steal. Does anybody have any questions? ah No way. I think I think i understand.
01:10:08
Speaker
All right. Question number one. Geostorm. Hmm. When the network of satellites designed to control global climate starts to attack the Earth, it's a race against the clock for its creator to uncover the real threat but before a worldwide geostorm kills everyone.
01:10:29
Speaker
Greg? Greg. Gerard Butler. That's correct. Gerard Butler played G. Frost. You got to listen to your gut. Yeah, yeah.
01:10:40
Speaker
Yeah, you can't wait for confidence. Question number two. Hard night falling. After an Interpol operation in Italy, Michael Anderson attends a company dinner party when suddenly the 50 guests are held hostage for $150 million. dollars Max.
01:11:01
Speaker
This just sounds more like a Jason Statham movie to me, so i'm going to guess Jason Statham.
01:11:07
Speaker
God damn it. No, I'm sorry. Greg, can you steal? Other?
01:11:15
Speaker
That's correct. For a bonus point, can you guess who the other person was? ah Daniel Craig? fact No, that was Dolph Lundgren. Okay, all right.
01:11:27
Speaker
Question number three. Oh, I forgot. I'll tell you the character's name. Oh, please. oh Yeah. Question number three. Wildcard. When a Las Vegas bodyguard with lethal skills and a gambling problem gets in trouble with the mob, he has one last play.
01:11:46
Speaker
And it's all or nothing. Who played Nick Wild? Max. Max? I'm going to guess Jason Statham again. I really hope I'm actually right this time. Yeah, 100%. That's a I didn't feel like Gerard Butler would play a character named Nick Wild. No.
01:12:04
Speaker
No. Question number four. Homefront. A former DEA agent moves his family to a quiet town where he soon tangles with a local meth drug lord who played Phil Broker.
01:12:21
Speaker
Greg. Greg? Gerard Butler. Ooh. I'd like to see him play the role, but anyway. No, it's interesting. This is fun because you get to imagine either one or someone else.
01:12:37
Speaker
Max, can you steal? Hmm. I think this is I'm going to try to steal. Is this other? No, it was. eat That was Jason. You know who else was in that movie? James Franco and Winona Ryder.
01:12:53
Speaker
Wow. It's a weird cast. Yeah, it makes me very curious. Question number five. Cop shop. On the run from a lethal assassin, a Wiley Con artist devises a scheme to hide out inside a small town police station.
01:13:09
Speaker
But when the hitman turns up at the precinct, an unsuspecting rookie cop finds herself caught in the crossfire. Who played Bob Riddick?
01:13:21
Speaker
Greg? Greg. Jason Statham?
01:13:27
Speaker
No, I'm sorry. That wasn't Jason Statham. It was Bob Riddick. Max, can you steal? Oh, boy. um
01:13:39
Speaker
I guess I have nothing to lose at this point by stealing, so I'll try to steal. It's other.
01:13:45
Speaker
sorry it was. what that That was Gerard Butler. That was Gerard Butler, huh? What was the name? Bob Riddick. Bob Riddick. Huh. What a world.
01:13:57
Speaker
Yeah. They make so many of these movies. Yeah, they keep busy, these fellas. Question number six. Kill them all. When a mysterious stranger arrives at a hospital on the brink of death, an FBI interrogation unlocks an international plot of revenge.
01:14:17
Speaker
Who played Philip? No last name, huh? No last name. Just Philip. Make of that what you will. Greg? Really undecided. Greg?
01:14:28
Speaker
Other?
01:14:31
Speaker
ah no, wait. I'm sorry. don That was force of habit. All right. For a bonus point, can you guess who the other is? There's like a man that I'm seeing in my brain, but I can't think of what his name is.
01:14:46
Speaker
But it's not going to be correct. So why don't we just assume that I got it wrong? Max, can you steal? I have no idea who's in this movie, but I'm just going to say Liam Neeson. Ooh.
01:14:58
Speaker
Strong guess, Jean-Claude Van Damme. Okay. All right. Question number seven. Just three more to go. Last seen alive.
01:15:10
Speaker
Will's soon-to-be ex-wife mysteriously vanishes at a gas station. He delves into the town's criminal underbelly while running from authorities in a race against time to find her.
01:15:21
Speaker
Who played Will Spahn? Greg. Greg. Gerard Butler. That's a Gerard. Okay, you had that on lock. It sounded like a role he'd take. like they were just like he's just a He's just a regular American man. He's like he's definitely not, actually. No.
01:15:40
Speaker
His American accent's weird. it sounds like And they keep making him doing it. It's weird. Let him be a Scotsman. Question number eight. Thirteen.
01:15:52
Speaker
A desperate man takes part in an underworld game of a Russian roulette. Who played Jasper? Max. Max.
01:16:03
Speaker
Jason Statham? Correct. Again, Jasper just didn't sound like a Gerard Butler character to me. No, you couldn't buy That's a bridge. But Jason Statham, he could be a Jasper.
01:16:14
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Question number nine. Last one. Here we go. Triple threat. When a billionaire's daughter, intent on bringing down a major crime syndicate, is targeted by a group of professional assassins, a team of mercenaries must stop them before they kill her.
01:16:35
Speaker
Who played Paiu?
01:16:40
Speaker
Uh, Greg. Greg. Other? hope. Okay. All right. For a bonus point, can you guess who the other is?
Action Star Guessing Game
01:16:50
Speaker
What year was it?
01:16:51
Speaker
Uh, I don't know. Okay, I'll say Jet
01:16:57
Speaker
Good, strong guess. What do you think, Max? Oh, boy. um
01:17:15
Speaker
I have to say something. You don't. I was also going to say Jet Li. Now I'm out of ideas. That's weird. I don't... I don't know. um Steven Seagal.
01:17:27
Speaker
Sorry, that was
Introduction of the Batty Awards
01:17:28
Speaker
Tony Jaa. Okay. Oh, okay. Hung back Thai warrior. Tony Jaa. Uh-oh, it's the Batty Awards.
01:17:43
Speaker
Now you're messing with me. Now you're messing with the Batty Awards. Now you're messing with the Batty Awards.
01:17:53
Speaker
Now you're messing with the Batty Awards.
01:17:59
Speaker
Congratulations to all the nominees.
01:18:08
Speaker
That's right. Congratulations to all our nominees. It's the Batty Awards. The only awards that we give out in the final segment of the show. Greg, do you have a Batty Award? Yes, I do. So I have to say this entire time I was going to give it to the human executive toy, which was just like a series of five chairs that were balls that one person would sit in and they would like clack together and the one on the end would kind of fly off, which was a fun yeah fun little visual.
01:18:37
Speaker
But then I remembered about 20 minutes ago that the anchors were smoking. And so I just want to give that little piece of world of building a tip of the cap and Because it was such a nice touch to see this anchor just like smoking and calling everybody cocksuckers. It's not what you'd expect from a film, and I appreciated that.
01:18:56
Speaker
Fantastic stuff. I'm going to give my Batty Award for the most wasted Leguizamo to poor John Leguizamo. Yeah. You saw him and he thought, oh, thank God, someone...
01:19:09
Speaker
excited to
Max's Webcomics Promotion
01:19:10
Speaker
be in this movie but even he was just sort of like man maybe you know just yeah he couldn't get it over them and they gave him nothing nothing max do you have a batty award uh i'm gonna give the batty award to the spelling of the organization humans which has a z at the end for some reason very table also spelled with a k instead of a c why i don't know I mean, so what creativity and spelling is what my award is for. I think, yeah.
01:19:39
Speaker
Both Z's and K's look great on posters. That's why Citizen Kane was such a hit. Yeah. Max, thank you so much for coming this week. It's been great to get to know to you. It's been great to talk to you.
01:19:52
Speaker
And I know that you've always got a lot going on. Please, please plug your stuff for our listeners. ah Yeah, I write and draw webcomic called What Happens Next.
01:20:03
Speaker
I also very occasionally write and draw a different webcomic called Roman Candle. ah You can find What Happens Next at whathappensnext.webcomic.ws or you can just go to ah my profile on bluesky or x.com Twitter but Twitter or Tumblr and find you know like links to my work. At some point I should really put together a website, but My handle pretty much everywhere online is Maximum Graves if you want to see my art and my posts.
01:20:39
Speaker
And I know that Anna's a big fan of your work. I know I've loved what I've seen. and know that even ah previous guests of the show, ah when we asked Gretchen Felker Martin if she had any plugs, she was like, I'm going to plug Max Graves.
01:20:52
Speaker
You should check out Max did not know that. That's awesome. so everybody, take our word for it. Take Max's word for it. Go check out Max's comics. And ah you had you had a Patreon too. I saw that. I do have a Patreon. You can subscribe to me at Patreon.com slash Maximum Graves.
01:21:10
Speaker
ah You won't get anything in return, but you will you can give me $3 to $5 to support me continuing to do the work that I do and ah having to work less shifts at the Colorado Rockies Stadium.
01:21:25
Speaker
Come on, y'all.
Engagement and Upcoming Episode
01:21:26
Speaker
Support a young artist. Yeah. Well, listeners, you know what I'm going to do now. You know it's time for me to ask you to give us five stars. And it's time for me to ask our guest.
01:21:38
Speaker
Max, are you going to listen to this show when it comes out? Yes. Okay. When you do, will you give yourself five stars? Yeah, okay. I don't know that I feel like I deserve five stars, but in the interest of... Yes, you do. We're telling you. You definitely do. Thank you.
01:21:56
Speaker
Thank you. In the interest of, I don't know, gaming the the algorithm, I'm happy to give five stars to the podcast if that yeah improves its standing and in any way. Listeners, you see how easy it is.
01:22:08
Speaker
Hop on board the five-star train. Don't forget to follow. Don't forget to subscribe. Whatever you can do on your podcast platform, we'd much appreciate it. ah Don't forget to come join us in our Discord, where we're watching Tyler Perry's The Oval, and we've got two movie screenings a month.
01:22:24
Speaker
Come hang out. We've got a great crew. And don't forget to join us next week when we'll be joined by Kate Bellock to talk about student bodies. And ah until next time, be good.
01:22:39
Speaker
Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. This opening drums on this are surprisingly long. Every time you think it's done, it's not.
01:22:50
Speaker
Yeah, I've done this on karaoke before, and there is like a moment of just standing there filled with like dread. 16 bar intro. Hey.