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Eddington
54 Plays2 days ago
If you value your life, you should think twice. Because the people of Eddington like guns. THEY don't want you to hear this bloated and meandering Eddington review. THEY don't want you to listen to the full hour+ where we're not even discussing Eddington! But we will not be silenced! Our pain is not a mistake!! Doug is joined by Tony and Cyrus to discuss Aster, if James Gunn should stop listening to test audiences, the origins of conspiracy theories AND MORE in our longest episode yet!!
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Transcript
Introduction and Overview of 'These Guys Got Juice'
00:00:18
Speaker
All right. So this is a special episode of These Guys Got Juice. ah I'm Doug Davenport and I'm joined today by Tony and also ah my buddy Cyrus. And we're going to be talking Eddington, the new Ari Aster joint.
00:00:37
Speaker
So I guess let's just we' go one at a time. If we could briefly say like, where are you guys, how you guys feel about Aster overall? And like ah in the most spoiler free, the we're we're going to get into spoilers super quickly, but I just want to have like at the top, like a ah brief thing. If anyone wants to is curious about like, oh, should I watch this? So like, yeah, just like if you have like any kind of initial thoughts or like ah just a ah brief summary, how you feel about it in in the least sense.
00:01:07
Speaker
um So i i I remember when read it. Sorry, I'll just start over. You can edit. I'm sorry. um No, this is all the same. Please do. Actually, if you could replay it like five different times and read it and read it and read it and read it and read it just to like really underline how I fumbled that beginning. That'd be awesome. Double it. I'll put like a beat over it. Yeah.
00:01:32
Speaker
And maybe a bit of reverb. That'd be nice too.
Ari Aster's Influence on Horror Genre
00:01:44
Speaker
um But yeah, no, I um Ari Aster first came on my radar when Hereditary came out. I'm a big horror guy and I pretty much watch whatever comes out, good or bad.
00:01:56
Speaker
Right. And it's because I think that horror can reach something that most other genres can't while also reaching broader appeal. Right. um And what I found found that he did with Hereditary was something that, you know, it it it wasn't like revolutionary, but it was certainly a moment film. Like, you you know where you were when you watched that movie and it changes your perception of like grief in horror and how you perceive that. And unfortunately, it kind of started that trend of like trauma and in horror films and it kind of carried over into Midsommar.
00:02:29
Speaker
But the thing is, is that Ari Aster is so good at doing that, that you don't even really associate those films with that horror strain, I guess you could say. Then he made Bo is Afraid and Bo is Afraid is just like,
00:02:42
Speaker
balls to the walls, like mess masterpiece, right? Like a movie that like, even at times where it doesn't fully come together, you're like, yeah, I'm going with this because I understand what he's putting down.
00:02:53
Speaker
And I admire that he's attempting to do this. And I feel very similarly to Eddington in that way. I think that there are a lot of moments in this movie that don't 100% work.
00:03:04
Speaker
However, like I think that what it's attempting to do, its its goals are earnest and true. i think that it doesn't it doesn't try to overreach for a topic without having the proper resources or knowledge to ah approach those topics, even if it's not sensitive.
00:03:23
Speaker
Right. the film really wants to bristle and punch you in the face almost. And think that the fact that it's so like in your face in that way, it actually speaks to a kind of filmmaking, especially political filmmaking that we've been missing for a long time.
Exploring Themes in 'Eddington'
00:03:38
Speaker
So like just from a broad standpoint, I think Eddington is a blast in theaters. the The first time I watched it, it, seared into my brain and I've just been thinking about it ever since and I've heard like Southland Tales comparisons I don't think that's the case here this is like it's its own beast I think almost sorry go ahead only in the sense that they're like both big swing but their swings in like different way like they're they're political movies of their moment although I think Southland Tales even though that's very much like George but like it is tied to one administration moment in particular.
00:04:12
Speaker
just i feel like that is gonna like be kind of time. I don't know maybe maybe I'm biased because I love that movie but this is very like 2020 very specific to 2020. So ah ah Cyrus what's what's your ah relationship with Aster and overall did you like the movie? yeah hor Yeah, so my relationship with Aster is that every movie I see of his, I like more than the one before.
00:04:37
Speaker
So it's positive curve with him. and Ari Aster, I think for me, he's a director where you when I learned about him and when he emerged in filmmaking, kind coincided when I became really interested in the economics of filmmaking as an art form and as a business.
00:04:59
Speaker
So I have a lot of conflicted emotions. Not just over that, but just in life in general with growing up and trying to find something stable.
00:05:10
Speaker
So a lot of that kind of goes with his movies. But with every movie I see, I do really enjoy the experience of watching them. Even if it's sometimes they are flawed, but they're flawed in ways I find admirable.
00:05:23
Speaker
Like Bo's Afraid is a movie I really like because it's a movie where the director just decides not to do anything boring or uninteresting. It's like the sequence with Joaquin Phoenix as like a storybook.
00:05:37
Speaker
It's just like a very... It's incredible. Yeah, it's great. I like when movies just do something like that where they change the visual language of the film and like the storytelling. It's just very exciting. creep And Eddington is kind of a step back from that, but not um in a reversal.
Surrealism and Storytelling in Aster's Films
00:05:54
Speaker
It's more lateral. It's going from like fantasia to realism.
00:06:00
Speaker
it's way that I found very interesting because when those pockets, think Aster is really good at these pockets of like surrealism. And in this different context of Eddieton, those pockets are even more striking. a Yeah,
00:06:17
Speaker
yeah but he's a director. I think lot of people ah attach negative feelings to. And i think each movie, he's showing that those are a little bit more unjustified than necessary.
00:06:31
Speaker
Yeah, well, I, it's interesting you say that people's negative reaction to, because I think he intentionally with each movie to varying degrees, wants you to leave feeling bad to some, we at least weird, like are off, like, but, but sometimes actively, but like even, you know, i mean, I guess some people are at the end of mid summer, like, yeah, you go girl. But I mean, yeah her boyfriend sucked, but that's not like her situation's not.
00:06:57
Speaker
they do be great I'm not like, yeah, this is going to be really good for her going forward. he intention yeah ah So ah there's always like an unsettling kind of uneasy feeling that I walk out of all his movies with it. I like when I like having any kind of emotional reaction to a movie. So when a movie can make me feel anything or just it distinctly feel like it, because like even if ah ah all of his movies we could point to like influences or things that he's kind of riffing on ideas with but they they do feel unique i mean maybe midsummer i have at the bottom because that feel maybe just i'm just biased because like wicker man's like one of my favorite movies and like that does just feel like like the remix of like okay this we're gonna update it for for now and this is this is this is my take on this specific
00:07:43
Speaker
movie, but I still liked it. Like, it's not like I think that's a bad movie. I just would think his other ones like feel way more unique, especially currently i would have Bo at number one just because i yeah, I vibe with wild swings. And like you said, it's like always doing something interesting.
00:08:02
Speaker
And I was just like, it's like, unbounded creativity on on display of like that storybook sequence and just like the whole conceit of like this the world his interior world is being visualized externally but through the lens of the surrealism it's like literal so it's like yes like the world outside his apartment is like fucking crazy and and stress inducing because that's he's stressed and anxious about everything but that's also just like they just made that literally the world and he's kind of doing it's interesting that he followed that up with another walking Phoenix movie where he's kind of doing that but through a different lens. It's just like through conservative anxieties and and and like like, okay, well, let's follow through on these feelings and ideas that those kinds of people have and like, let's make it literal. And I think that's, it was very compelling to me. I really enjoyed it. So that's
00:08:57
Speaker
I feel like, yeah, we're just going have to immediately into spoilers because specific things that the movie does. yeah. yeah You got something you want to say real quick him? yeah Yeah, I wanted to actually relate something that you were saying before about like the larger opinion of Aster, right? Just because I think that that's something that needs to be kind of discussed when talking about Eddington,
Engaging Audiences Through Non-Meaningful Elements
00:09:19
Speaker
right?
00:09:19
Speaker
And I think that what's fascinating is that people have perceived him as some kind of like a toiler who is like constantly putting things in the background for you to find, right? And that you're like you're supposed to like search for his films to understand them better.
00:09:35
Speaker
But what's interesting is that especially in recent interviews, right, and you listen to how he describes his process and the purpose behind things that he puts into his films, oftentimes he just says, those things don't mean anything. I put that in there to fuck with you.
00:09:48
Speaker
And I think that that kind of statement right there should tell you exactly what kind of person Ari Acer is. So many people in their minds saw him as like a hereditary midsummer.
00:09:59
Speaker
I'm super serious. I'm going to make you feel depressed. And as time has gone along, he's revealed himself to be a lot more of a trickster a lot more of a prankster person and you relate that to like almost like an m night shamalan in that way but a far more perverse one and uh yeah no shamalan's a good reference point i also saw someone say that he said interview that he likes tim and eric which is all makes it because from a comedic standpoint one is movies are funny like even the most serious so like ah Hereditary, I guess, is the most serious. I mean, they're they're all serious to different degrees, but even hereditary is pretty funny, especially if you're looking at it to the dog degree or from the perspective of the husband.
00:10:42
Speaker
and because from his point of view, he's not even in like a supernatural thriller. he His family's just fucking crazy. yeah So it's almost like a punchline when he throws the like the thing in the fire and then he lights it on like I feel like that he enjoys fucking with his characters in a Oh, I was thinking about this in terms like ah how he puts Joaquin through the ringer in this and Bo. I'm like, it almost kind of feels like Sam Raimi-esque or even how the Coens like kind of torture their characters.
00:11:12
Speaker
And there's more Coen references i want to bring up because like in terms of like how they kind of play with the idea of like karmic... ah reverberations from their characters actions, but then like since we're following a specific character from their POV, there's no really way to this what's the difference between a coincidence and like an act of God of like God's fucking punishing me for what I just did.
00:11:38
Speaker
Or I don't know this weird, inexplicable thing could have just happened and that's just what's happening but since we're in the characters POV it's like well this is intentional like this is like happening
Political Themes and Societal Commentary
00:11:47
Speaker
because of what you did and like yeah that's that's why i love the Coens and he kind of is playing with those ideas but I feel I I really vibed with the way he deploys that in and Eddington so uh with with that yeah I would overall i'd say recommend if you're not sure if you've liked his other movies just just check it out yeah you probably you maybe you might not just not like it or feel or leave feeling weird but that's kind of the point so i yeah i would i would definitely say just give it a shot um it's probably not going to be in theaters much longer it already like went down just in within the week since release it was like
00:12:26
Speaker
two showings from, mean, I get it. It's fantastic for just taking all the screens. So whatever. It's doing than... I was going to say, it's doing better than Kinds of Kindness last year. Because Kinds of Kindness, I feel like it's the only movie I saw where the theaters, like an actual multiplex, pulled it out of theaters before even like the one week minimum. Because it was gone faster than the marquee was still up at the theater that it was at in Santa Cruz.
00:12:58
Speaker
Yeah, around me, like the day that I saw it was maybe like the day. to so Like there's only like a handful of days that it was but it was playing in that week. And i i but you maybe saw like the one of the last possible days. So I get what you're saying. 24 is really weird and inconsistency. Yeah, because it's like this, the Astro movies overall aren't even awards plays. Like I kind of get the strategy of like making those movies at the end of the year more scarce and then kind of like rolling them out gradually ah wider in that way. Kind of i i I don't agree with that. I think it just give it just give it to me now. But
00:13:32
Speaker
I can at least understand the thought process with those movies, but just like, this is a awards place. Like, just why, why are you like fucking with the, or that's just what they do, but whatever. um Yeah.
00:13:46
Speaker
um So let's, let's get into sports. Oh, sorry. What did you want to say? Yeah, just to build off of the Pascal, ah sorry, to build off of why Eddington's leaving theaters, I think that perhaps there's some like anti-monopoly laws that are keeping Pedro Pascal from like being on all of the screens in the movie the theater. You know, not not that we don't like Pedro Pascal. I think he's awesome, especially in this movie.
00:14:07
Speaker
um And... They should have tried to keep materialist in theaters longer too, so we could have had all all three going and you could have done like the triple feature. yeah Yeah, it's not like you had that lengthening surgery on the materialist theatrical window.
00:14:22
Speaker
and And also, I wanted to point to what you were saying about like 24 strategy of like releasing these films. I think it's really fascinating with this movie in particular that there's been such a mixed reaction.
00:14:34
Speaker
from like the critics who saw it at festivals. right like they they They were kind of mixed, they they didn't know who it was making fun of, and because of that they just kind of dumped it in the summer.
00:14:45
Speaker
And age twenty four notoriously does this when they don't have any faith in a project, and they just did it again, even though it was directed by like one of their golden boys. It's very bizarre that the studio is- Is this hereditary being one of the highest grossing A24 movies? like yeah Especially for horror? Yeah.
00:15:03
Speaker
Oh, and they number also get a big amount of money too. but um So with all with all that said, but I really want to just hop in because like the the, I don't feel like the trailers really say anything about what the other than this is a movie set during 2020, you know, like it's about there's going to be pandemic stuff in it, which people were already bristling at the idea of that. I was like, why? Why is that inherently bad? Like, let's do it. Like you said, like he's tackling,
00:15:30
Speaker
political, modern political themes in a way that a lot of other directors at his, you know, access level aren't doing. So ah just to do that is a swing and of itself and an admirable.
00:15:45
Speaker
So, so yeah, now, now we're in, in, in spoilers. um I think There's a lot of interesting swings this movie takes.
00:15:57
Speaker
ah Probably the biggest one that's going to be the most alienating is the Antifa super soldiers.
00:16:07
Speaker
I mean, I would have to solo check the runtime of like where they enter, but it it almost does feel like that it is instantly in that karmic way of like, yeah before we even see them in the jet, hasn't he already...
00:16:23
Speaker
uh, like assassinated Pedro Pascal and and, and, and his son and like started to s stage, stage that. So yeah, that to me almost feels like, right. He's like, Oh yeah, I'm going to spray black lives matter on the walls or whatever. And like, make this look like that kind of thing.
00:16:36
Speaker
Uh, cut to and the well equipped and train Antifa soldiers in a private pet on, on route. Like there's almost just like instantly he's like, Oh, okay. Well, yeah. What the, this boogeyman you've invented. Yeah. It's real. So they're, they're on their way.
00:16:54
Speaker
It feels very racing. The globe emoji. Oh my God. you're right. Yeah. The Antifa helicopter feels very much like a Raising Arizona by the Coen brothers, where it's like the the wrestler biker coming in.
00:17:08
Speaker
yeah I think politically, i feel like a lot of people are going wrestle against this, but having that reference in mind or like an homage, it feels like very much like what you said. It's like the character's paranoia of what Antifa are like rather than what they really are in reality or outside the film.
00:17:27
Speaker
And it kind of does make sense. It makes emotional sense that way. it fits what the film is going for. it's also just really funny. It's funny and it goes with what I talking about, Bo's afraid of like the characters anxieties, like being externalized in reality.
Conservative Fears in Aster's Films
00:17:44
Speaker
And I think it's just like mocking how absurd the idea is of like,
00:17:47
Speaker
what these, and because Antifa isn't, it just means anti-fascist. There's not like an actual like organization with leadership that there's anti-fascist like, or there's like black bloc who does stuff. Like I've known a lot Chicago protests. They show up there. They're kind of like the vanguard, to keep you know the police away from, from protesters and they're all dressed in black.
00:18:07
Speaker
They kind of like, you know, push the riot squad back and stuff. And, but, but there, there, there's not, It's like, it's the one group that's going around all across the country. I love when he finds the phone. Like it's, it's, it's like it's like but the Nick Bolan joke of, of, of 9-11 conspiracy of like, it's clue time that they just like left the clues for him to find that it's all there in, in, in this phone of the videos that of, of like all the places they've been. And it's like, Oh, wait it was all these guys. We're doing all the connected to all these like riots and attacks on cops. It's like, it's like, just like, do you know how ridiculous that is?
00:18:46
Speaker
Because they're like trained and like better equipped than the cops. And it's like, where how is that even, how who would be funding that? I guess George Soros is what they would say. like it George Soros funding commandos.
00:19:01
Speaker
I hope it was Katy Perry. She seemed pretty, her influence in this film is pretty pronounced. and Like just going off of the airplane business, right? Because this movie is all about like built realities. these this This way that we perceive the world.
00:19:17
Speaker
And after a certain point, we just enter Joaquin Phoenix's world. And so like, It just doesn't make any sense because his own political ideology isn't properly defined and it just is such a good representation of the twisted brain worms that get into the conservatives' heads. No offense conservatives, but also offense.
00:19:35
Speaker
um When it comes to ah like the... political perspective of this film, I've called it like Chaco Trap House Cinema, like almost sarcastically, but I think it's also true.
00:19:48
Speaker
Like this idea of like dirtbag left ideology is just seeping through this entire movie. And I think it's important to call to specifically because when you look at people like Matt Christman, who used to do like those vlogs that he would just like talk about like his thoughts on readings as well as his ideas on modern American life, right?
00:20:10
Speaker
A lot of these characters feel like ah people that like the people the hosts on Chapo Travelers would just make up and talk about. These sound like the raving imagined lunacy within the ideas of conservatives. And then if you were to actually go and watch like how a conservative operates and you realize, like,
00:20:30
Speaker
I the surf mindset that a lot of conservatives have, like it just becomes clear as day. Yeah. Going off that, it almost, I was, I was the whole movie. I was trying to, I was thinking about his interviews where he was giving Unforgiven as a reference point. I'll get more into that in a sec. But like another movie that I, that was lingering with me after I saw it, I was like, Oh no, this is like the second Joaquin Phoenix, like kind of taxi driver-y riff that that he's been in that's better than Joker because like ah there's, you were never really here, but I would say there's similarities to Joe and Travis in that like, does Travis really have a political ideology other than like, yeah, he's, seems like he's racist, but like ah that he just wants to be in port. Like he wants to matter and like be a hero. And that's, you know, like he gets a gun and first he's going to assassinate the candidate that this girl he rejected him is working for. But then that doesn't pan out. So who he's like, okay, well now i'm just going to kill these pimps and pushers.
00:21:32
Speaker
And so it's like not even like that, that like, clear minded, but in the same way of like Joe and a lot of characters in this movie, I think are frustrated with the idea that the world doesn't revolve around them.
00:21:49
Speaker
Like because in the that's their motivation for wanting to to do things like he keeps invoking to his wife. ah that like I'm doing this for you. And I was like, does he even believe the story that the moms perpetrated about ah Pedro Pascal? It doesn't seem, cause like when he, after the, I don't want to get into like the very riveting Austin Butler scene, but after that scene, he's like asking her in bed, is like, did anything with your dad?
00:22:14
Speaker
Like, it seems like he's more in line to believe that narrative that, you know, she was a victim of an incest that is like, Yeah, well, that makes way more sense than the the Pedro ah Pascal narrative. But that's still like he's citing that even even at the end when he thinks he sees her like, did you come back because of what I did? You know, like that, like she would be happy that he like killed him. And then it's like, this is not for her.
00:22:40
Speaker
or Also in the same vein, I think that mirrors a lot ah since Aster himself voked Unforgiven, you know, like the prostitute who gets cut up at the beginning, who like starts this whole chain of events in revenge, like she kind of doesn't,
00:22:56
Speaker
matter in the grand scheme of things of like why anyone's doing like there's a very nice scene between her and clint eastwood uh where he actually meets her but it's like almost just like the idea of this writing this right and i like that it keeps getting bigger and bigger every time that it's repeated it's like yeah they like cut off her ear and stuff like like yeah she was cut up and it's like not good but it's like they're making it sound like she's like deformed or like missing something from from her face and like you just can't look look at her and it's like that's just their way to justify like they're taking this job for the money like it's like it's an opportunity to kill some people for money but if they can say that it's like kind of on like oh yeah these are bad guys they're like fucking cut off this girl's ear uh so we gotta we gotta get these guys and then like that's kind of like joe's like well this guy raped my wife and it's like do You don't even believe that, do you? He's like using it because it's like politically advantageous to like accuse your opponent of that. But it's like it doesn't even feel like that he even.
00:23:57
Speaker
Right. Like, did you guys also have that feeling that it's like he's he's not buying the the assault by Pedro Pascal narrative, is he?
00:24:07
Speaker
I go for a second?
00:24:10
Speaker
Yeah, I was gonna say that scene, i think it does a really good job like conveying a very online mindset of trying to to dig up the worst slander on somebody. And then like the crushing disappointment you feel when it doesn't pan out and everybody moves on.
00:24:25
Speaker
and makes Joaquin Phoenix's Joe just feel so much more impotent as a public figure. Yeah, it's it's good Elon Musk representation calling peter your opponents pedophiles.
00:24:37
Speaker
i mean, he did it the one time and it was true, but like other than that, most of the time, to my knowledge, the other people, most of the 99% of the people that Elon has called pedophiles were probably will probably not.
00:24:52
Speaker
i just want to point out that this is the second time that Ari Aster has made a movie about being in the cup chair, because that's essentially what this movie is. It's like he's The conservative mindset now is this power fantasy to become this like big, strong person who fights for family values and pushes back against evil.
00:25:11
Speaker
And just like in reality with these crazy conservatives who have been divorced like dozens of times, ah yeah give like Cross has no understanding of Stone as a person.
00:25:22
Speaker
like cro I say stone because I say Emma Stone. I'm sorry if that mixes anybody up. But no, I know when it comes to... luck I can't remember her character's name.
00:25:34
Speaker
She's barely in the film, but her presence in it is remarkable. Like her face is just like Louise Cross. The moment when she's leaving the house with her bags and he tries to hold her... And like the non reaction on her face as she's almost like in a tray. I'm like, Oh, my God, that's like one of my favorite episode for its moments.
00:25:56
Speaker
Yeah. That's a great lighting. I'm sorry. but sorry What did you say, Greg? was going say, there's great lighting in that scene with the headlights and front facing because when you have front facing lights in relation to the camera, it makes everything feel flatter and washed out. It feels like something on a photograph of a crime that you weren't supposed to do see. It's kind of like how Texas Chainsaw Massacre looks because Texas Chainsaw Massacre has that kind of southern feeling of being like a video you're not supposed to see. And that sequence, I think, gets a little bit of that feeling.
00:26:30
Speaker
That's I right on the money. i also kind of thought about like Kurosawa, the more modern Japanese director, not the, you know, Girao version. Like when it comes to like from a horror standpoint, it just becomes like this image that like sears in the mind. Like I just watched Lake Mungo yesterday.
00:26:50
Speaker
And a lot of that movie is just like, you know, zooming in on somebody's face and they're like, it looks like a normal face, but something about it's unsettling. Emma Stone's face in that moment it has that quality.
00:27:01
Speaker
But to go back to what I was saying about Cross, like Joaquin Phoenix's character, um a lot of the film is about like the things that he thinks he needs to do to acquire masculinity.
00:27:14
Speaker
And a lot of the other characters in the films, they have similar goals as well. They think they're doing the right things, but all they're doing is spitting their mud in the tires. And he's doing it in like the most problematic ways.
00:27:25
Speaker
And we haven't really talked about his whiteness as an element of this, but I think it's important to bring up because a lot of this film is about him feeling first light. I don't even see race. oh oh yeah Oh, yeah.
00:27:38
Speaker
I didn't pick up on that. Right? Mm-hmm. I thought he was one of the same play ball people.
00:27:49
Speaker
but so i It's funny that that's like is a specific plot point in like how many years ago was cur the curse wasn't that long ago. It's like yeah Emma Stone likes being in a year two.
00:28:01
Speaker
Yeah, like ah shows or movies that that that's like a point. And a lot of the in both of them are united on the theme of like political phoniness and performativeness. And there's definitely some crossover there.
00:28:16
Speaker
it feels like to come. Yeah, exactly. It's like that. Yeah. Have you guys been to New Mexico? I haven't. Unfortunately, no. It's like I've only ever seen it depicted on film, but have you been, Tony?
00:28:34
Speaker
I've been there. I went there two years ago. So and I was there for like, like a week and a half. So was there for like a decent amount. And I travel around a bit, but I stayed mostly in Santa Fe. ah But this this movie nails New Mexico way more than the curse. I actually found the curse to not really capture the New Mexico feel. I know some people disagree with me there.
00:28:55
Speaker
But I felt that Eddington was like, Pitch perfect. And specifically, um the inclusion of the Pueblo. Like, i I would really like to get into that because even in like, because in my neck of the woods, I'm Canadian, right?
00:29:10
Speaker
And like, even like native representation or like depictions in our films or just depictions of stories set in Ontario. Even that's lacking.
00:29:20
Speaker
The fact that yeah like there have been multiple Emma Stone projects where the Pueblo are put front and center like this, and in a way that actually makes sense with her like cultures and teachings if you've ever listened, right? like It's really interesting.
00:29:33
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting to have that element of it because one, it kind of does ah lead into that Western vibe of like you have these different like law enforcement entities who are like, i mean, that's a trope in just general cabos of like, oh, this is my jurisdiction. But it feels distinctly Western here of like,
00:29:51
Speaker
you need to mask up if you're on our land or this is our, lay you know, like this is, this is a Pueblo matter because of the shell casing was, was here. And the, the, the, the way that, that, that, that one, uh, Pueblo cop is like not letting this go. Like, cause he's just trying to shoo away. And like, once he starts trying to stage things, he' like it's very inconvenient. This, ah this guy is sticking around, but he's like, no, like, cause I think he sees right through Joe's bullshit. He like,
00:30:17
Speaker
He knows, mean, even if he doesn't immediately know what he's trying to do, he's like, this is something is happening here. And also like speaking specifically to Cross's whiteness, right? Like you live in any other state, right? Like.
00:30:32
Speaker
Native cultures and and immigrants for sure are around, right? But they're not as front and center in several ways like they are with Pueblos in New Mexico based on vicinity, right? A lot of the times like hateful, bigoted ideologies come from the lack of proximity to people, right? And Cross is a unique character because he has this proximity to these people and rather than like have understanding for them,
00:30:54
Speaker
He has a sense of ah inadequacy, like like he like he almost like wants to top them right in terms of law superiority. But they keep trumping him because they actually care about the betterment of like the community and the land itself. so I mean, and that's like, I feel like between that, the Pueblo cops and then Pedro Pascal, it's kind of this, this inadequacy of, ah it's white and a and white inadequacy because it's like, why should I be taking or it's not, it's not just the general politics that conservatives have like, don't tell me what to do. It's like, don't tell me what to do. You
00:31:32
Speaker
you know, brown person. Like, don't like, I do not want to, how are, why would you be talking down to me? I am by, ah by default above you your station. So like, don't, don't talk down to me like, and, and even, but I, he, Joaquin is so good at playing like simmering and stewing rage. Like, like you can see it in his face when, when he guns down the, the, the,
00:31:57
Speaker
I didn't know the that it was going where it was going to go when he kills the homeless guy. at First, my thought was like before you even pulls I was like, oh, is he going to like kill this guy and like train Pedro Pascal? I was like, that's like probably too advanced a plan.
00:32:10
Speaker
um um but but but I, he's going for the more direct route of, I know I will just eliminate the person who is giving me trouble. Um, but, but, but the way on his face where he, he's just watching this guy go off as he's behind the counter bar, was like, oh, okay, this is, we've reached critical.
00:32:29
Speaker
Cause like when he walks away during the, the fireworks, uh, Katy Perry fireworks after the slap, you're like, okay, something's gonna go off now. Like the fireworks are going to go, wherever we're on route to the fireworks factory because like this kind of guy and in the very Travis Bickle way is not going to like let, you know, in their mind society shit on them this for much longer until they're just going to break it. even though he is in the place of authority, he is a sheriff, which it just hides the absurdity that he is this ah powerless cock. is is it it's like He even says that one of the like town hall things is like, oh, you think the the power lies in the police? It's switch it' it's like, yeah. it i mean like yeah
00:33:14
Speaker
It is true that like the politicians have barred in past policy, but it's like the police are obviously more powerful than average, like the average for like, like So i the fact that he still feels that he's like coming from this underdog perspective, it's like, no, you're not like the common guy.
00:33:37
Speaker
Well, I think it's also interesting because like once the BLM stuff really kicks into gear in this like second act of the film, right? ah Phoenix personally feels persecuted by the condemnations of the police like nationwide, right? And just speaks perfectly to his cuck nature, right? Of course, he feels like he needs to prove that he's like the good one, right? And then he just go and everything he does just further cements that it's just worse and worse.
00:34:06
Speaker
And I think that the firework sequence, ah like we can dig into a deeper, like I'm sure as we continue. But I think that that sequence is just such a perfect encapsulation of everything this movie is about. And specifically because and but for the first half of film, we're watching as Cross doesn't want to wear masks.
00:34:25
Speaker
He hates wearing masks. He overemphasizes how it makes him have trouble breathing. right And all of the Pedro Pascal is so like aligned mayoral cronies, they're very serious about it. But then once he gets to the party, they've got their masks hanging from their ears.
00:34:43
Speaker
They're not socially distancing. and it's confirming the fears that were in Cross's mind the entire time. It's in his mind, this is like the water conspiracy in Chinatown, but it's just a bunch of people having fun without him.
00:34:56
Speaker
And I just think that that's really fucking funny. and that And now that you're putting it that way, that makes the scene even funnier because I was I wasn't even but i mean, there are pointed moments where they're not like fully masked up and he makes note of of it. But the the fact that like, yeah, they're at this party,
00:35:13
Speaker
he is never going to be a part of this this this in crowd. And yeah, this is the level of the China Taos war conspiracy is is funny.
00:35:24
Speaker
And I love that they use that. That was the conservatives were definitely leaning on that in 2020. Like i ah I've seen some people push back and like this is not what 2020 is actually like, but I think it goes to the idea of film is supposed to reflect the feeling of what something is like, not that what actually literally transpired. And I feel like in that sense, it is successful in terms of at least from my experience, especially of but the people that I would see who like didn't want to mask of like the asthma thing was used so much.
00:35:57
Speaker
I have asthma and it's like ah did Was it harder to breathe with the mask sometimes? Yeah, but like it's if there's something that would inconvenience me a little bit that could maybe even a fraction of a percent of a chance of like but not killing someone like I'm going to do that because I care. But I mean, like the other people more. I mean, yeah, that's just like not an issue for for me. So the the fact that like the people made that like that this is the most tyrannical thing of like, oh, they're making there's mask mandates.
00:36:29
Speaker
They're making us just your code and measures we have to mask up. but It's like, OK, what? First of all, they are barely in for they i mean the the I they they more and more became less and less enforced. But even the places that had signs that were like, you got a mask.
00:36:45
Speaker
I wasn't really seeing people get kicked out like we see in the group. That definitely did happen. Like there were videos like that that went viral of like, you got to leave the store. You don't have the mask on. and And that just led to this persecution of like, oh, they won't let us in because we won't mask up. But that mostly was not the case. Like and someone might be like, sir, oh,
00:37:05
Speaker
mask and then you've already walked past, you know, like andp the the the people in those stores aren't paid enough to like and also be like a bouncer and enforce like the state mandates and stuff. So they're not really going to give you trouble about that.
00:37:25
Speaker
one One thing about the masking is specifically, I want to call attention to one character that I haven't really seen a lot of people talking about in any criticism, really.
Character Relationships and Societal Impacts
00:37:35
Speaker
But there's that character that Cross is inspired by to go to the supermarket, right? The one who is refusing to wear a mask, like you were saying.
00:37:44
Speaker
um Was it just me? Right. Or am I crazy? But in the scene where there's the Black Lives Matter protests slash riot, when the window is broken, right, and he's calling attention to it, was I the only one who thought that he broke it?
00:38:02
Speaker
It seemed very unrelated to what had happened, even though the the yelling girl like wasn't denying that they had anything to do with like the window. But it didn't seem like it didn't even make sense logistically of like who is who would be looting right now. like There's not that many people. This is such a small town.
00:38:21
Speaker
like to be like why they like Yes, that did happen during like the actual 2020 protests, but that was like in the big cities like where there's like so many people that can cover up someone wanting to slip in through the like, you know, disorientation and like ah'd rip off some stuff. But but also, who gives a shit? Like, people always like ah be so worked up over that. It's like, oh, property, my window.
00:38:47
Speaker
is like, yeah, fuck your... Who's fucking who? Who fucking who take the insurance money and shut the fuck up? I do not care about looting. and I think that Ari Aster doesn't care about looting either. I think that he's painting that guy as the looter and he's trying to pin it on the protesters and make a commentary on the fact that protesters, they don't want to loot.
00:39:09
Speaker
They will loot. they And they they have their rights to, in my opinion, after a certain point, you know? Yeah, absolutely. like When it comes to like the idea of looting, it's again this like conspiracy within the conservative mind. You know like you hear about like ah these corporations that talk about how looting has caused them to lose millions of dollars, but then it turns out that they were lying about it the entire time, so then they'd save a couple extra bucks on their taxes.
00:39:35
Speaker
All of this stuff, it links back to like the central theme of the film, which is that everything that these people are doing is useless because ultimately the technocrats are in control.
00:39:46
Speaker
And Pedro Pascal's character is the closest one to the technocrats because he's essentially playing Gavin Newsom in New Mexico. um But when it comes to who is in charge here, it really is solid gold magic card.
00:40:01
Speaker
and and And like even with him gone, like that is if that's the final shot of zooming out on on that that data center and that like it's very telling that his mother in law.
00:40:11
Speaker
I love that actress, by the way, she's having a good year. Was Penguin this year or was that at the end of last year? Anyway, she's had a good run of playing, doing crazy mother stuff or complicated mother mother relationships. But the fact that like when she's basically She's basically charged because Joe can't do anything it at at the end. They're still going ahead with the data center. It's like there there was a woman at the town hall who brought the concern to the ah Joe earlier. It's like, we don't even know what they're really doing there. and But it's like, that's not going to be stopped. Like it's like that's that's like you said, those are that's where the power actually is like all this like,
00:40:52
Speaker
You think you're raw rag against the machine or like this big conspiracy. That's the conspiracy is right in front of you. Like the day the tech industry, like it's like we got all, you know I love that final series of shots where it's rocking Phoenix after he's been essentially lobotomized in bed, and then the mother-in-law gets to bed with him, and then like the helper who is designed to take care of him gets in bed with her. It's just so... It's like an aristocrat's joke.
00:41:24
Speaker
the The helper doesn't have much screen time, but he makes ah and a for me. i was because like, I brought up the same Ramey connection before I was like, I think Ari Aster thinks that Joaquin Phoenix getting slapped is one of the funniest things. I'm like, I think I'm inclined to agree because like the involuntary laugh I did, like the movie is or like, I don't feel sorry for this guy. But it's like the wow, you really this is like such a um He's losing in the biggest way possible by the end. And then the fact that when the helper dragging him to the bathroom and his arm flails, and then the guy just smacks him.
00:42:03
Speaker
I was already laughing more than other people in my theater, but like I laughed so hard at that because I was like, wow, this guy's already lost everything. He still can't even like in the privacy of going to the bathroom.
00:42:18
Speaker
He's gonna be disrespected.
00:42:22
Speaker
For the crime of just existing. Yeah. No, I'm sorry. No, go ahead. Keep going. Existing at that point, because he hasn't he's already done. I mean, yeah, he's done horrible things, but he can't do anything get anymore. It is like he's it was just like basically involuntary flailing that the guy reacts.
00:42:38
Speaker
It's of like, yeah, to me, that's just so funny.
00:42:43
Speaker
He brought on himself. By the end of the film, like the fate that he suffers, obviously, it's a tragic one, right? But I also think it's kind of like what he would have wanted in a dark way. He doesn't really want to be the leader.
00:42:58
Speaker
He doesn't really want to be a good husband. He doesn't really want to like get into these fights. The only reason he does any of these things is because he has told himself that these are the right things to do to be a good person.
00:43:09
Speaker
But ultimately, he's still like, you know, baby brain. He's still like, melted by what he reads on the internet and stuff, just like everybody else in that time and now. So like the the final, you know what he becomes is like the ultimate consumer.
00:43:26
Speaker
And like that's what everyone's going to ultimately become eventually. Not not literally, but you know like I think that he a representation of where people are going. mindless, like ah not able to do anything yourself, just staring at a screen in terror as you know, your life slips away.
00:43:45
Speaker
But he is still like he's ever exposed as a fraud. So he does get to the even though he has, quote unquote, lost everything he does, like it in a very kind of Because I always, I, you know, the taxi driver opening along with some other, you know, traitor written endings are open to interpretation. But I always took it literally of that he did survive and was declared a hero that because I thought that was like more it.
00:44:08
Speaker
i always go with interpretation. of what's more interesting. And I was like, it's more interesting if society and has decided Travis Bickle is a hero after after he did this. this Yeah, he like freed this young girl from these pimps, but he did... It wasn't altruistic reasons that he was like doing any of this, and now this girl is like traumatized for for life.
00:44:28
Speaker
But like the the that Joe similarly has this like public is at least it seems in the public side, yeah, he is a hero. Like he was, uh, him and that boy stopped the Antifa massacre, you know?
00:44:43
Speaker
so and like, that's what Alex Garland warned us about.
00:44:48
Speaker
am Am I reading too deeply into thinking that that kid is Kyle Rittenhouse? Oh, absolutely. That's good. ah But if Kyle Rittenhouse had like flirted with like being woke before going to that degree, like like if if he was like trying to get laid and like became like an activist and then that didn't pan out.
00:45:08
Speaker
want to say like obviously Joe's like the most evil person in the movie, but this is his friend Pedro Pascal's son. hang He was like see seemingly intentionally only going after the girl to fuck with Billy, I think was the white kids there or something like that. But it seemed like he was just doing this just as like a fuck you to him to i was like I thought you guys were friends. Like what what the fuck is this relationship that you're just like spite but getting up with getting with this girl.
00:45:41
Speaker
I thought that narrative of the movie was like the three, four younger people, like the boy, the coward in house, Pedro Pascal's son, the cop played by Michael Ward, the African American cop, and then like the white blonde protester.
00:45:56
Speaker
thought that was like a very funny, it's almost like its own little narrative within a narrative about race and like um youth politics in America. I wrote in my Letterboxd review that that section of the movie is essentially white pussy ruins everything. Because without putting too much thumb to literalize that, it's essentially...
00:46:24
Speaker
like Pascal's Latino son then the African American cop, they both get their lives ruined because they keep trying to chase this white girl. And then the white guy who feels emasculated or demasculated because he couldn't get with the white girl, essentially comes out on top and then he becomes right wing TikTok.
00:46:45
Speaker
influencer and he just starts shedding garbage and it's a great fit. i Any bit is like a dumb character or an idiot character ending up on top is a really good bit in the work of art.
00:46:59
Speaker
Oh, I always i always love those those arcs like like v Veep ah Richard Splek or whatever ah the guy from Detroiters character's name is like the fact that he like just like fails upwards the whole show progressively like that makes that one of my favorite like ah and endings of of ah where the the show goes but yeah Yeah, let's go back to to Mike the cop.
00:47:23
Speaker
ah I do think that that's a really good performance and his whole arc of like he's the one who's going to take the brunt of this. He's getting framed, but then he ends up living at the end after the Antifa attack. Do we think is is he actually still in ah like the deputy's department? Because when he's at the event people are talking to him like he shouldn't be there. So i was like, is he still, is he just wearing that uniform?
00:47:47
Speaker
Like almost like cosplaying, like that he still has authority. And, uh, cause I, I wasn't sure what to make out of that, like a little ADR line of like, they're like, Hey, excuse me, sir, this is a private event or something. And it's like, if he was a kind actual cop, they wouldn't be excused. Like he would have a reason to be there, right? Like, so i i um was thought that maybe like, yeah, he still, because, he you know, he has that talk with Joaquin Phoenix, like, yeah, by my, my,
00:48:17
Speaker
age, my dad was like captain and that that's as far as he got, but that that he still it's all the all these characters want to be important, like to to like have some kind of authority that they can project. I mean, that's like the essence of a fascism of like wanting to enforce your will. ah but But even on just like the smaller a micro level of just like they had, they just want to feel some level of importance. So like, is he just wearing that uniform?
00:48:43
Speaker
Like, what is he prepping for something in particular at the end when he's like firing and practicing again, we see that like his aim isn't quite what what it was at the beginning when he was showing up, but he's like getting to you know, he gets a headshot there. So like, he's like, who is he?
00:48:56
Speaker
Is he training for someone? Or like, is he doing? Find out that he's into? but Honestly, like a part of me wondered if he was going to go after Joe.
00:49:08
Speaker
But like ah also there's the question of like, is he getting ready against like Antifa? Because that's what that's who did that to him. Right. And I think that his character specifically is interesting because he he's like at all of the crossroads. Right. Like obviously there's the racial component. Obviously there's law enforcement component.
00:49:26
Speaker
but then there's also his youth is tied into it um so he's in this position where he can speak to a lot of different um you know voices within this town but by the end he just becomes a cop again and like whether or not he's actually a cop doesn't really matter he's wearing a cop's uniform that's the way he is a cop like it exactly Which is a conservative thing of like people just want to cosplay.
00:49:53
Speaker
but But yeah, it is it is interesting because you can see on his there's moments where he's like spacing out after the protests have started and they're like, Mike, you OK? And he's got you can tell that his mind is like, what of like the fuck am I doing? Kind of of like, am i like is is it self reflection or is he just ah worried about him, he like just in terms of a self-preservation standpoint, like what's going to happen to to me personally? Or is he thinking of it in terms of like what, you know, you know, he said he had no relationship but what is Axel saying? and Like, you should be with us. Like, I think that does strike some kind of chord with him that he's like, for sure.
00:50:33
Speaker
Yeah, maybe I should.
00:50:36
Speaker
He, he, he, like, there's a part of that that's for sure he should, but then, like, in the climax the film, he gets blown up by Antifa, right? Which is, like, obviously ridiculous, obviously stupid, right? But, like, if we were to take this film at its face value, right, imagine if this guy is in between these two worlds, right? Like, either he's against the police or he's with the police, right?
00:50:58
Speaker
And he literally, like, his life is altered because of the actions of Antifa. So, it's like, he's pushed into the conservative realm. And I think that that's probably the most reactionary thing that Ari Aster does with a character in this movie.
00:51:12
Speaker
But at the same time, I think it works because it creates an interesting character. Yeah, it makes sense within the ah the reality of the these characters, even though we're mostly seeing this through Joe's world and it reflects back externally. like we We're still keeping the logic consistent within these... The logic for for what it is.
00:51:34
Speaker
I do want to talk about... i mentioned briefly that that Austin Butler scene, because i wasn't sure how much he was going to be in the movie. I'll take any Butler that I can get. But he was so magnetic, the like little bit of screen time we had.
00:51:51
Speaker
And i was like, Oh, of course, there we are with we're dealing with, ah you know, conservative conspiracies, we, we are going to get into sex trafficking stuff, which touches on the the vein of like, a real like, I mean,
00:52:04
Speaker
She never even did when she releases Emma Stone puts out her video on Facebook. I don't think she ever even explicitly says that my father molested me. She just says like I am one of many or like you know that.
00:52:16
Speaker
and if I think it's clear to draw those lines of like what she's talking about and like why there's this weird relationship with with the mother after what after what what happened. And and so it's like real victims there are real victims of this stuff of like you know molestation and traffic is sex trafficking between you know very wealthy, powerful people does happen.
00:52:40
Speaker
but But the fact that conservatives just use that as ah It's just another venue for fantasy and drifting. Because that's all... Butler is at the end of the day, right? Like he is very he talks with like there's a lot of gravity test and he's like he's like, you know, almost like hypnotic as this the way he like is engaging with with those staring and into people's soul. Like I love when he's like looking at her art and he's like, it's like you're touched by God.
00:53:07
Speaker
and And you can see how that has ah profoundly affects her. And can fix his knee jerk responses like the chuckle. He's like, if you like apologize to me because he like looks back, he's like, I'm sorry. yeah and yeah everybody to like yeah that doesn't feel good to your wife that you like just kind of validate her right there but um yeah he is just another grifter at the end of the day but he does seem to believe what he is preaching i i like in in that said like not that that makes it not grifting like it's not like like it's it's not a lie if you believe it yeah it's still lie but
00:53:45
Speaker
and And he is co coasting off like a real suffering, you know, thing that affects real people. So and the of the day, he's like just as scummy as like everyone else. But the appeal of him ah to like an Emma Stone or ah other people is that like he's like very personal and he's like saying like like his whole speech is end like, you are not a mistake. Like that's almost like speaking to like all these people's inadequacies. Like that's the...
00:54:11
Speaker
That's the the power of ah someone like Trump that can be like, ah all these fucking things that are going wrong are not your fault. eheavvi Which is the the i i irony of Trump of like, yeah, there are systemic things that have are affecting everyone, but he's like not, like he he he's just using that kind of like Austin Butler, you know, that it's like, yeah you're it's it's It's a very Tyler Durden-y thing of like, I'm going to you know grift off of these these real things that have disenfranchised and alienated people in society that they feel lost and adrift with, is now just like a tool for recruitment for me. for you know
00:54:56
Speaker
I almost expected it to zoom out and he had like multiple pregnant wives at the end because I'm like, oh, like cult leaders. So like he probably has harem or something. And who knows? Maybe he does. i mean... He seems like someone who would easily be... think the fact that he doesn't have an arm more pathetic.
00:55:11
Speaker
Per cross. and Yeah. If I could ask Ari Aster one question, it would be what he or Butler did to style Butler's look. Because his look is perfect, and I can't put into words why it's perfect. I just look at it, and I'm just like, yes, this is what it should be. It's very glam. He's very, like...
00:55:35
Speaker
it suits him too. i don't know ah what he like, obviously Elvis, he just embodied that, right? Like something about this, like he just owns this more than he has with other roles in the past.
00:55:47
Speaker
And I think that what's interesting is that he is a person who's positioning all of his followers as victims, right? And I like, obviously Emma Stone is a victim in the story, right? And that's part of the reason why she's drawn to him, right?
00:56:01
Speaker
I think that what's interesting about Austin Butler's message is that he's treating all of his followers like victims and he's trying to point out like the disenfranchisement that all Americans feel and rather than ah pinpoint anything that actually matters he's just funneling all that attention to himself so while his therapy speak may soothe a lot of these people it still is ultimately in service of himself and I don't think that Emma Stone even really cares because she's just disappearing into a fantasy kind of like her mother has already done
00:56:33
Speaker
It kind of reminds me of In Nashville by Robert Altman, the Half-Oak Walker and his van, a where he's throwing out so many different slogans and promises, some of which seem like good and reasonable, and others which seem like more wacky and off-the-cuff.
00:56:49
Speaker
and You kind of don't know by the end if Half of Walker is like a legit candidate for good if he's also just like another guy in the noise. And think this movie does have that kind of old mini feel with just the sprawl of the characters and the beliefs.
00:57:05
Speaker
I would agree because there's nuance. Sorry, what were you saying? Okay. No, no, go ahead. I'm one those people who hates like hugging the mic. So if I ever go like that, just go for it. Yeah.
00:57:18
Speaker
I was just saying shows this the spectrum of of like ah political belief and like new even within conservative views because like in that Austin Butler scene like there, you know, like but he should be inclined like the Antifa attacks haven't started yet. But like he's ah he's already, you know, we see how incredulous he is towards his mother in law and her conspiracy stuff.
00:57:41
Speaker
So that when Austin Butler is relaying this thing of like, yeah, they released us into the woods and like, you didn't like kind of like chocolate, like hold on, like, wait a minute, like, this doesn't make sense. Like what you're saying doesn't make, make sense. It's like, okay, it's interesting that you could, you're applying critical thought to this specific thing and not broadly this thing.
00:58:02
Speaker
And I do, I'll say that like, Yeah, i obviously conservatives are more in the, you know, sights of of ah being lampooned. But I do like that there is like the nuance with Pedro Pascal. Like, I think he does care about his his community.
00:58:18
Speaker
ah And for a while there, they want to play with like the kind of question mark of, what did happen to his wife, you know, like, is that credence to what the mother-in-law had been in saying? I do like that he was not, at least as far as we know, a predator, you know, but he was ah an opportunist in a way a lot of characters were in this, and that in that one political ad where he's using the the mother leaving as like for political gain. Like he's using his son is right there as something that has to be very painful for the son of like,
00:58:49
Speaker
yeah, I'm going to make put ah ads for my campaign off of this because this this will help me get elected, reelected. And this was... No, no, that was the end of what I was saying.
00:59:02
Speaker
Okay. Was I wrong that at the party when Joaquin Phoenix ah rounds the corner, right, and he sees Pedro Pascal's character, was he like with a guy?
00:59:15
Speaker
Did I like misremember that? Hmm. I remember him close to a guy and they see Joaquin Phoenix and they have to like separate. and And the reason I bring that up is because like obviously the wife is brought up a lot and there's the whole Emma Stone thing.
00:59:33
Speaker
um and And for whatever reason, I like thought I saw that in the theaters. I could have been wrong. and That's why I wanted to bring it up with you guys. But in that moment, if we introduce this idea of Pedro Pascal's character possibly being bisexual or even homosexual...
00:59:46
Speaker
A, that would go into Cross's delusions, and b that would like completely derail everything that like he had thought about Pascal at that moment, furthering his inadequacies brought out by this party.
01:00:01
Speaker
Because initially when like his like, I don't know if it that's, that's not just his campaign manager, it's kind of just like his number one guy that he's talking to about, ah about the allegations. He's like, I never touched her.
01:00:14
Speaker
You could initially interpret that as like, yes, it's the thing all those predators like have when they're like just defending themselves. But then looking back on it, like having the full scope of things, you're like, I think that he was being literal of the like, yeah, he may be probably just like never, he may never tried to because like, because could he have just been a closeted man and like went on this date because she was a local girl and that's what you're supposed to do. But like he didn't really have that kind of attraction to her.
01:00:42
Speaker
Not even for like, clearly there was other things going on with her at the time, but like that, you know, he had no reference point for that, but just, you know, in terms of his identity and like the kind of,
01:00:54
Speaker
I think that would work with the themes of of this movie of like someone having to because that's I yeah, it's a people stay in the closet for many reasons. But in terms of politics, it's just politically advantageous to not be a so like that. That's another form of like inauthenticity, even at the cost of like, yeah what what were do you what are you sacrificing from yourself and like your personal life? and ah ah Just your being du like for gain for to stay in office, like to what end so you can be a pawn for this data center and the technocrats like it's like, that's really ah what you're accomplishing at the end of the day. But you know, it's good. Yeah.
01:01:38
Speaker
Again, i don't think that The movie can let you lean into and things like that, but i it it's very weighted in terms of the conservative mindset here is the more ridiculous one worthy of scorn and ridicule. like the Yes, it's not even like Ecuador. For sure.
01:02:03
Speaker
I think that that's what makes like people who are like Democrats ah who don't like this movie so funny to me, right? Because like anything that like a left-leaning person gets in this movie is like not nearly as equally terrible as like how the conservatives are painted. They are like full rubes. And like yeah the Democrats are at least well-intentioned, but at the same time, because of their well-intentioned, they make a lot of big mistakes.
01:02:29
Speaker
And with Pascal's character, he like only cares about like maintaining power in the most boring way possible.
Power Dynamics and Societal Critique
01:02:36
Speaker
like He doesn't really... like He's not a man of action, right? But because he has institutional power, he's able to just say things, and that's the law.
01:02:46
Speaker
um I wanted to circle back to something we were talking about with the Rittenhouse and Pascal's son's character, right? A part of me thinks that Pascal's son and that Rittenhouse character, they're meant to be like almost a an echo of what Pager Pascal and Joaquin Phoenix are going through.
01:03:05
Speaker
And maybe Pascal's son is doing that almost like, ah you know, unconsciously, right? Where it's like, you gotta to have to like, big dog your opponents in life, right? And that's what he's doing with this Rittenhouse character, right? is like again You guys have pointed out how he's like pretty cruel, like the way that he's like going out with this girl that he's interested in and all that stuff, right? But at the same time, like if we're looking at the context of this town, what what these people are being taught is like the proper way to like be in this society mixed in with all of the crazy shit that's going on online. like It makes sense to me, at least from that perspective.
01:03:45
Speaker
And I can only imagine like when I was in high school, we were like Facebook had come out, but it wasn't like at but the social media wasn't like where it is now where like everything yeah every everyone has done is like being videotaped. ah So I can only imagine like what that does to like the power and structures and like social politicking of of high school clicks and stuff. But the,
01:04:11
Speaker
The teenagers already, from my experience, are incredibly cruel. So like within the context of what we see here in the modern age of of a kind of clout chasing, like besides big doggy, it could just be the like a status thing too of like, well, yeah, I should have the pretty white girlfriend because that's like what you do. So like even if at the expense of like,
01:04:34
Speaker
Clearly, my friend has is like inpech been infatuated with her for a while, but like it's like, well, am I supposed to give up my opportunity? like I have it in here. so like i it's It's kind of just like everyone else. like They're choosing to for their own self-interest. It's just a movie full of selfish people.
01:04:57
Speaker
Yeah, I think this movie... area go Yeah, you're all right. I think this movie is one of the great how social media rots her brain movies and shows all the different strands. Like it's like Facebook and Facebook groups for like the mother and Emma Stone's character and like their generations.
01:05:14
Speaker
And then it's like TikTok and Instagram for like the younger generation. Especially because you have the Rittenhouse character who's like obsessed with eagles on TikTok. And so is Pedro Pascal's son.
01:05:26
Speaker
And then they use kind of like but use Instagram basically as the equivalent of Pascal and Joaquin Phoenix's political ads to just essentially send information war to either themselves or to like ah strangers who ah ten are tangentially connected, like the but car, but who isn't actually involved directly in the personal...
01:05:51
Speaker
conflicts and just shows how all that spirals, which is can be very relatable. Yeah, I thought that was kind of pretty real for a movie that did so much in in the surreal day of like this kid sends the cop the the selfie of of her the girl just because he's angry and he like he'd like once he kind of feels like inept and powerless to lash back. He's like, oh, this cop like that'll thatll something will happen.
01:06:19
Speaker
And now, and then his friend ends up dead. You know, it's like, you from, it from, you know, it wasn't Mike that killed him, but it's like, from his point of view, he's like, oh, I, I did this. and You know, they're like, ah ah yeah, just a teenager impulsively doing something without really like thinking through like, Paul, so what what do you think cops do?
01:06:39
Speaker
And they're angry. So, yeah. Yeah, and then Mike gets screwed over just because he has that received on his phone, even though he didn't do anything to instigate that.
01:06:51
Speaker
He just, by proxy, has that, it's just like bad timing and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's just very... when Did Joe plant the stuff in the car when after the kid comes and says that he like had sent the the Instagram message and then he tells the other deputy like, oh, I got to go grab my phone. Is that when he was planting the the stuff in in the car? Because I guess we cut ahead to like...
01:07:18
Speaker
After he's like, I got grab my phone, then we cut to, and then it's the white deputy in the interrogation room. We don't know how much time has really passed between those cuts. But I was like, oh, and this this isn't really instantaneously that we're back here. And they did they probably have left left the kid in there for a little bit.
01:07:32
Speaker
That's what cops do anyway. But even the person's not guilty anything. We're just going to let them stew in the interrogation room. ah And then you know that gave Joe time to, right? That's when he would have had to have planted it.
01:07:45
Speaker
I was a little unsure about that because i think Mike also says that if they checked like the caliber of the gun, they would see it was different from the bullets found at the crime scene. But I also did think, I thought at first it was implied that Joaquin Phoenix was setting him up.
01:08:00
Speaker
I think I need to watch it one more time to get that cleared off. Right, because I wasn't sure how... exit it like Did he intentionally take the gun that Mike uses with the goal of setting him up?
01:08:11
Speaker
the He was, in the moment, almost so playing naive of... like It was clear he was manipulating the situation, but when he was like... but Did this opportunity kind of just stumble onto? Because he couldn't have known about the Instagram message that, I mean, he knows that Mike has a history with that girl, but that's like not enough really to like solidly establish a motive really that it's like kind of some unsubstantiated relationship having like some, some kind of exchange or like thing.
01:08:43
Speaker
ah that can, that's still pretty circumstantial, but like it's still more concrete that, and like he could not have planned that part. So and yeah, part of me thinks like, well, he's not that smart. So did he just like stumble onto this like the opportunity after like, cause, cause was the point of him leaving, like he went to the town border and got COVID swabbed.
01:09:06
Speaker
Was he like, at first I thought, oh, he he's trying to establish like an alibi of where he was when he gets called in. But yeah. that That's what the point of it was, right? But but I do love the the the progression of he clearly caught COVID, like probably from maybe from the all of this guy, but like at some point, he's caught, he's continually coughing, he's getting worse and worse.
01:09:27
Speaker
And then he gets the the email about your results, he never opens it. But i was like, he has he has it, right?
01:09:35
Speaker
was serious, man.
01:09:38
Speaker
I was going to say him not checking the results right away. It feels very much like a serious man and that movie's ending. Another very Coen Brothers thing about it. Yeah, just like this... Am I mis...
01:09:51
Speaker
No, I was just like instant karmic retro ah reverberations, like not just the Antifa ah assaults, but it's like, yeah, you also have COVID. And and then then he's like, you know, loses any physical like capability and at all. Like it's like just like insult to oh an insult felt very Cohen-esque.
01:10:12
Speaker
but Sorry, you were saying? Yeah, um the COVID thing. um Am I mistaken in thinking that he doesn't actually show like proper symptoms for COVID a until after he gets test tested? Or am i remembering things wrong with the film?
01:10:28
Speaker
He was like, he guess he would gasp and like have to use his inhaler a lot. I feel like he had like a slight cough a couple of times, but like the actual heavy duty coughing doesn't begin until after he's swabbed, I think. Yeah.
01:10:43
Speaker
So... That was the impression I was under. Right. And in my mind, I believe that ah he like he didn't believe in COVID, obviously, like he like he wasn't going mask. He wasn't masking anywhere. Right.
01:10:56
Speaker
But I believe that it's one of those things where, you know, even in conservative thought. Right. They don't believe in something until it happens to them. Right. they they. they think that they're invincible until it's on their property.
01:11:12
Speaker
And it's exactly the same thing him with him in this moment in particular. Also, I wanted to point to specifically the Coen brothers because we've been circling them several times and we've brought up what? We've brought up Raising Arizona. What else have we brought up so far?
01:11:28
Speaker
serious fan i I feel like ah No Country for Old Men is in there. I feel like Big Lebowski is in there. like Like this movie feels like it wasn't just inspired by like one Coen Brothers movie. It feels like it's a part of the Coen Brothers canon.
01:11:44
Speaker
in a way where like these characters are like evolved in the same way there's a lot of like the deep tragedy that the coen brothers will incorporate they all are well-intentioned at least from their own perspectives so like that is tied in with them as well but like ultimately I don't think that Astor is going for Coen's. I think that like we're in core, like we are perceiving it that way because ah the Coen brothers, they're one of the few filmmakers who have actually like looked at people who are within like the lower rungs of American society and have not chosen to just like exclusively show them as country bumpkins.
01:12:21
Speaker
Right. Like they they will often go to like the Texas, like, you know, like conservative South and make these movies. And rather than focus on you know like their political aims, they'll focus on like how do they live? How do they make a happy life? right And Eddington is trying to meld that with the reality of our times.
01:12:42
Speaker
No other filmmaker is doing that right now. No other filmmaker is trying to have that honest conversation. And I think that that alone makes Astor like... as like one of the most important of our time because of this movie.
01:12:55
Speaker
um I don't mean to like cut off really quickly. is it okay if I quickly run to the washroom? You guys keep going? I'll be right back. No, we mean we we can take us us soft fuck No, that's I 100% do the same thing. and That's why I ask people when I have like mutuals on of like, guess I do I even know your day because if someone doesn't have their name in the thing, I'm just like, I just know you as like a profile picture and like a handle. Yeah, in my Twitter imagination, it's just people with profile pics with a soft fart style cut out mouth.
01:13:26
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, they're they're not real people. Doug, what do you think about the nickname Dougie? Like, I just, I've always wanted to ask a Doug that, you know, do you hate that? Do you like that? What's the deal with Dougie? I'm kind of neutral on it. Like, I like Dougie Fred, you like, because there's like precedent of like, well, Dougie Fresh was cool. But like, and I feel like around the time people were like, show me how to Dougie, like, I kind of waned on it because then people would just be like, oh, can you show me how to Dougie? It's like, no, I can't. So, yeah.
01:14:01
Speaker
Look, if you want the soldier boy, I got you covered. But Dougie, you're fresh out of luck. and I don't know and why i know the song, but you what do you want me to show you? There's a dance? I didn't know there was a dance.
01:14:12
Speaker
Isn't the Dougie like you do like one of these? Like it's it's like it's you're kind of like brushing off the side or I may be getting it wrong. I don't know. I barely dance. Yeah, I just i kind of just bob to and i get my body will involuntarily move to a rhythm. So I'm like, I'm just like, oh, feel it out. That's the way you're supposed to do it.
01:14:32
Speaker
Yeah, i was like, oh I guess I didn't get the black gene that gives you like musical talent. But but I also just quit most music things that like I was in trouble. I played trombone at first when I did school band. But then I was like, this is not moving my arm to every note position. That's fucking too much. And so then i went to all my friends were doing trumpet. was like, I'll do trumpet, I get to next to them.
01:14:54
Speaker
and but then I did not stay because then when it was time to like go to my high schools, like marching band was so serious. I was like, I They want to sit down and play. I'm not marching. Are you serious? Like, I'm going to be outside round in this fucking outfit. And like, even during like the the warm season, like I'm not doing that.
01:15:14
Speaker
that. Yeah, i music has such a tough learning curve in the beginning, just for the physicality of it. I've got learned how to play the trumpet when I was in high school, and my parents hated it so much because it was such a loud instrument that they would pay me to not practice, and that's why I don't play the trumpet today.
01:15:31
Speaker
And it's one of my biggest regrets, to be honest. I love the trumpet. I should have stuck with it, especially as someone who like still – I never outgrew any of like my teenage musical taste, so like I still love like Scott Punk and stuff. i was like, damn, i could have – fucking join. the You even have to be good at it. You know, that's the whole point of punk is like, you know, I think it was on Paul Gia body's podcast when ah Bill Hader was on to talk. of I don't even know. i think they were just talking horror movie but movies and decrypted stuff in general. But he's saying like, the first time he saw Evil Dead, ah or I think that was example he used of seeing low budget horror. it was like kind of like hearing punk music where youre like oh, this doesn't have to be good. But i also take the resent that was like Evil Dead.
01:16:19
Speaker
The first one is like the arguably as I got, oh I initially I was like, I liked it as it got more goofier. But then I circle back and watch that first one. was like, this is kind of c incredible filmmaking and like ter legit terrifying like that because that one's just trying to any of the there The humor in that one's like kind of incidental, whereas in the other ones, they are trying. But like that one's just like trying to be a very upsetting horror movie, and it succeeds.
01:16:48
Speaker
It was a video nasty. It was banned in the UK. It was successful in what it did. like the the The original Evil Dead deserves a lot more praise, and so does the remake. I'm a fan of the remake. I like it too, but now post-Romulus, the Fettigate, Eddie Alvarez, I'm like, oh, is is he on Hackwater? But I'm not one of those people when when someone makes the movie I don't watch. I'm like, well, everything they did before was now bad because like, I do think there's like a nastiness and meanness that I did reverberate with, especially that East Lodette and hell, he only wrote the sequel, but I'll fucking go to bat for Don't Breathe.
01:17:26
Speaker
Because like both of them are very nasty movies, but two is so audacious in the idea like, we're going to take this fucking molester rapist blind guy from the first movie and he's going to be the Terminator. We're going to do a and now he's going to.
01:17:45
Speaker
ah but But how do you do that if you need to invent someone who's like even na nastier people for him to go after. so it's just like. like the grungiest like Phil, like these like parents who want to organ harvest their daughter or something. and He's got like, like fight them with his blind powers. And i'm like, yeah, this rules.
01:18:07
Speaker
They should make 10 of those movies would certainly be better than another Friday 13th in my books. We're done with those. We don't need it. The new James Stoneburn movie is going to market correct the Friday the 13th movie they're going do right now. It's just going completely wash it. Did you guys like in a violent nature? i felt like that movie had a really polarizing response.
01:18:29
Speaker
I still haven't seen it. i was like intrigued by the premise of it. But then when I saw, saw sometimes project the movie that I think is going to be the full movie based on clips. And then when people were posting kills from was like,
01:18:43
Speaker
Well, I think the movie should be much more boring if they're going to commit to the experiment. It should be like 99% walking and and nature shots and then like maybe like a few seconds of some kill. Like like the kill should almost be incidental from if we're from the POV of the Jason like figure, it should mostly just be like just stalking.
01:19:07
Speaker
But that's what the movie is. so That's what makes it brilliant in my mind. but Because like I feel like people were overpronouncing the violence in the film. I feel like it was actually much more like the process of a killer who's just like walking around the woods and like thinking about what they just did. Like you haven't seen the movie yet, right? But like I'll say that there is one sequence in this movie that I think is like maybe one of the best of the decade. I don't want to be too hyperbolic, but there's a sequence, Chris, you may know, where they're in like a sawmill.
01:19:38
Speaker
um see but i one I'm actually
Monologues and Memorable Moments in Horror
01:19:40
Speaker
right. like i yeah That's like one of the most brilliant things you can put in a horror movie ever in my eyes. Okay. um I'll watch it. You guys, and then we come back on and talk about it. I mean, Nick's been wanting me to watch it for forever. So I think that would be, i want to see it.
01:19:55
Speaker
Also, like I can't ding any movie that gives like a a really good monologue to like one of the best classic Friday the actresses. She was like, I'm not going to spoil the context, but it's an actress who was in the second Friday of the 13th, and she was a very fun character and personality in that movie.
01:20:14
Speaker
And it's like like one other movie, with it's like a Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi movie. It's just like a very fun actress who kind of disappeared. And now they just get to be like, it's a way better scene than like that Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie on Netflix that did the equivalent for...
01:20:33
Speaker
ah the final girl from the original film, but not the same actress, not Saudi Burns, but it was that was so perfunctory. It was perfunctory, but the way they handled that plot thread, i kind after being so tired by the David Gordon Green trilogy, ah Halloween by the end.
01:20:50
Speaker
I kind of like the take of like, she doesn't matter, like all this buildup of she wants her revenge against Leatherface and she literally gets knocked into a pile of garbage. And she's just like a crazy person who's like willing to use the girls for bait and stuff. So like, like I kind of liked that use of, even if the movie and stuff, that in like the actual very ending were the main parts that I enjoyed. Cause like, what do you think that they've got to weigh then he just takes like her sister's head off. It was like their automatic car keeps going. I laughing so hard.
01:21:25
Speaker
Like that's the little bit of like Fetty Alvarez. That was my main issue with Romulus. i was
Critique of 'Romulus' and Praise for 'Species'
01:21:30
Speaker
like, it it one, it wasn't like visually nasty enough, but it was also like not as, I was like, this just feels like a, a,
01:21:39
Speaker
you know, systematic alien movie of like, okay, know, he's gonna pick some people up. But I'm like, where's the specific nastiness that like you can do like, like, yeah like, fucking, this is people like his moviey it should people should there should be fans, it should have been a movie where there were fans who liked it. And then there were people who were like, that went way too far.
01:21:59
Speaker
Dino Moore should not have had sex with that girl for 10 minutes or so. Something like that should have happened, you know, like where it was obscene, know, like, And then this is Predator Requiem where it's like the pregnant woman scene, which is...
01:22:12
Speaker
You say whatever you want about that scene. It's memorable. You know what it should have felt like? It should have felt like a species movie. Because a species movie feels like what Betty Everaz would have done with an H.R. Giger thing, you know? You guys ever watch a species movie?
01:22:27
Speaker
No. I think I wasn't tossed at Hendricks. You got it. also did horror villains and slashers, and they did one for species. and I was confused because I hadn't seen species before then, since so I was wondering what it was depicting. And what it was depicting, pretty cool.
01:22:43
Speaker
Also, I think it's actually like really good movie. Is it Michael Madsen? I need to see it. Yeah, Doug, I was about to relate it because you said that you hadn't seen it. Like, you gotta see Species. it's It's got, like, Michael Madsen, it's got Ben Kingsley, and Flores Whitaker as a psychic.
01:23:02
Speaker
Okay, I'm there. Should have opened with force with a kareza. yeah like like where is the... those like I don't even know that the movie itself is schlock, but like that that kind of like premise where you're just going for broke with stuff like that. Like Forrest Whitaker is a psychic in a like sci-fi horror thing that like doesn't sound like that he should maybe that that kind of character should even be it. Like why why aren't we doing that with like ah like every genre movie? no The 90s spoiled us. The 90s, you had like the best actors, the best cinematographers, and like the best B-movie directors just working with big money.
01:23:43
Speaker
And nowadays, lot of that is just like independent now. And it's not as the actors. And they're all perverts. yeah They were all made by perverts in the 90s. Now, there's still perverts making movies, but they have to... you know They're like, no, I'm normal. I'm...
01:24:00
Speaker
I don't secure perverts. I've never had any fetishes that might be weird. just look at a woman and respect her until I I love. Friday the 13th, part 5, because in that one, the director just said he made a porno in the woods, and then the studio just cut it apart.
01:24:21
Speaker
yeah those We need more directors who came from porn. Like, come on, let's just we need more directors to transition into porn they should go both ways directors from porn and then yeah good do some after you've made a big budget move I want to see a Ryan Coogler portal at IMAX that's interesting there be the The climax in that would be incredible. He always nails the climax. Yeah, he does like the musician scene, but it's like an orgy of like different cultures at the same time. Dude, that sounds good. yeah right? because It's kind of working. Sinners is amazing. like I know we are so off base on Nettington, but like I just want... well like yeah there's horse people It's also a American movie
01:25:13
Speaker
ah ecological not ecological but like an ethnic community and all the different enter locking relationships and threads politically and economically. Eddington feels like an Adam Curtis documentary and Sinners feels like almost like a Steinbeck novel or something like that. You know, it feels like a book that you're reading.
01:25:33
Speaker
Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off there Doug, go ahead. No, I agree with that completely. and I love that comparison with with with Sinners that the novelist, because it like has basically chapters in it and when I was rewatching it with my dad, like he kind of will look down at his phone and then look back up and stuff.
01:25:51
Speaker
When we finally get like an hour into like the vampire literally dropping into frame, he had thought that I had like changed the channel, like put on something different, like that he was like, oh, this is the same movie. You know, like it's like you are kind of just living in living in this world for like a good I mean, it's not quite as more like 40 45 minutes before we actually see him like show up at the house. There's a lot of setup and I like that like that. That's I mean that the movie stronger for it because I've seen people be like, why do you take so long to get to like the juke join? I'm like, why?
01:26:28
Speaker
Why would you rush? What's the rush? man also It also does the same thing as a John Carpenter's The Thing, where the opening teases you on the supernatural threat and then you just forget about it for the next build up.
01:26:42
Speaker
Yeah, I always forget. No, I was just going to say, always forget. Even though it's one of my favorite movies that rewatch all the time, every time I rewatch The Thing, one I forget. how much of a kind of slow burn it is initially and just the specific orders of the scenes because you do hit a stretch like every there is no fat on on that movie like it at all adds up but like once you hit a certain stretch you're like oh fuck we're doing this scene with the defibrillators and then we're going to the blood and then it's like just keeps going and like oh we're fucking off to the races like after a certain point
01:27:16
Speaker
Yeah, I could have like, obviously just building off everything you guys have said, like because of how good the structure is does to get you into the film, I could have taken like another hour, I could have taken another two hours of that, I would have just taken whatever they gave him me.
01:27:29
Speaker
But specifically, like the deleted scenes, the things that I've seen from this film just that was left cutting room floor like that one scene of delaroid window playing on the piano so good the split diopeter that needs to be in the final cut or if they like if they're going to make like some kind of kugler just director's cut or something it needs to be in there because like when i saw that when i looked just like as its own isolated thing i was like this is what movie are to me. you know like the The whole relationship between the the the banjo playing Priest's son and that one singer was told entirely in that one shot. And I was like, the fact it's on the film and they didn't cut other things out, I was perplexed.
01:28:10
Speaker
But I love that. Yeah, I I pushed back a bunch of people were like the pacing would be thrown off if you put it back in. It was like, I think if it was in the movie, you'd still be cross. I don't think it would be uninterrupted like it is in the clip that was posted.
01:28:24
Speaker
would probably because once you get to the joint, you were constantly cross cutting. as I get more into like film editing, I'm like, man, cross cutting is like, so good Like when it's done well, it like really, really pulls you in. Like just any, any times the sinners does it so well. and I'm like, yeah, they could have easily but had like a few threads are going between them. We go back to Delray Lindo's performance. Like I, I would have had no issue. I don't think that would have been hard to do, but I also get that like, you don't want to have for, you know general audiences. Like if,
01:28:55
Speaker
the closer you get to three hours, you are risking it more, especially if it's not like an IP. If Batman's not in your movie, you don't want to like keep it going too long. I say fuck him.
01:29:06
Speaker
I know what I want. well oh Let me have my phone. Oh, I'm on the side of that. Yeah. I mean, like yeah any story I saw of like stuff that gun change for test audience. I was like, man, where's the James gun that I knew used to be fucking of bobpunks it is a Yeah, right. Like, he used to be the film like equivalent of putting up the middle finger, like the the Gen X equivalent. Fuck you, man. And then grabbing your crotch. And and like, why, why, why, oh why you listening test audiences? You shit, man.
01:29:41
Speaker
And it's clearly he had could like, he could have done whatever. So it's like, why? just um Yeah, I mean, I guess he's also thinking it. Yeah, he's a studio head. Now he's not just like a director writer. So that's obviously part of it.
01:29:56
Speaker
I'm so glad that you talked it. Sorry, go ahead. Go ahead. I can't imagine
Test Audiences and Filmmaking Decisions
01:30:00
Speaker
hosting a test audience. And like, cause what do you do to get like a specific note? Like the audience doesn't like time cards, like Monday, Tuesday, like what, like how does it even get to that point where audiences bring that up?
01:30:15
Speaker
I like bringing it up without like being prompted or the studio, like trying to like ask them like different qualities of the movies. This is very odd.
01:30:27
Speaker
yeah like Just based on like my tangential knowledge of the test screening process, right like they give you a card right and there are some questions on there. right There will be some things that you know maybe they're trying to iron out or they know are a problem. right So they'll ask leading questions.
01:30:42
Speaker
They'll say things like, you know like was blank clear? Did you understand blank? Did you notice this? Right? Like things like that, right? But the big problem with test audiences and the reason why I was like going yes, yes with Doug and what I was going to allude to further, James Gunn listening to test audiences to the degree that he did with Superman kind of neuters the film.
01:31:04
Speaker
There are a lot of moments that he's since come out and said like, oh, we cut blank from the film. And it's like, that would have been amazing. Why didn't you eat that in the movie? But then, like, specifically, Doug, I really related to what you were inferring to there with James Gunn and the fact that he's a studio head now. I feel like he is a different filmmaker now.
01:31:22
Speaker
And Superman is, like, easily one of his worst movies because it just does not have the same heart that he used to have. Like, like if you watch Super versus Superman. Right. super mean, Superman.
01:31:33
Speaker
Super is my favorite still, but like even compared to his blockbusters that he's done, there's more of him in Guardians of the Galaxy. Like if you just want to be like, well, a PG-13 James Gunn movie that's, you know, that's so closer to that than super but Superman. Superman feels like, a you know, like you need to test the waters and do brand management for Superman to get people back on board with your cinematic universe like louis and then the okay there's occasional touches.
01:32:01
Speaker
I mean, if not enough. i And some of the touches are weird like, oh, you took out all your other signature stuff. You left the massage. and But you didn't yeah do do enough with other weird stuff. You should sort like, let's dump on this this beautiful woman, but we're going to...
01:32:19
Speaker
ah Lois Lane Lois Lane's entire arc in that film is predicated on her understanding that her initial judgment of Clark Kent was stupid she has to come to terms with the fact that like she is he is worthy of her love and she is worthy of his love and her insecurity is the only thing that's like the bristle in their relationship and the end of the film is her letting that guard down and it's like ah Just from like a feminist perspective or from like ah the perspective of like, what like a woman's autonomy, right? I think it's pretty gross to have a movie that's just all about like, come on, why don't you see how great your boyfriend is? Come on, just like he doesn't. have to consider her perspective or change at all like the only thing overall in terms of his arc he changes is that yeah he accepts his his human uh parents and that i mean that's a whole other thing of the the immigrant metaphor of the stickiness of like what they do with the with the kryptonian uh like like on paper i get them like oh we want to do something different like what if the elves were like bad but then also then you're leaning into the it's it's
01:33:26
Speaker
I made the the joke when I went on Elvis's like stream was like, oh, it's like the anti it's the anti sinners because sinners is all about assimilation and what you give up.
01:33:37
Speaker
ah You lose part yourself and super runs like no, that's good. Like you should give up your identity where you're from. You should become part of like the best thing. And like that's that's actually better.
01:33:48
Speaker
but I love that comparison you just drew because, uh, Googlers films themselves, like throughout, they're so much about like control of, you know, your own identity, culturally speaking. Right.
01:34:01
Speaker
And how much you let that in, like you even see that in black Panther. Right. Um, and when it comes to, ah you know, uh, um what was the sorry the name i literally just i'm blanking on it i'm 30 years old now yeah superman there we go i'm 30 years old i'm just 30 years old so i'm like you know um but yeah anyway oh thank you thank you appreciate it thank you i appreciate it uh it's a film that is only focused on its main characters you know arc and when it comes to any kind of like
01:34:36
Speaker
um inclusive message, ah you know, naively ah stupid. It's like, ah you know, because it has to kowtow to like any kind of like broader populism thing, it kind of falters. And especially with like any kind of like, oh, you know what, I wanted to bring this up.
01:34:55
Speaker
and And this is the last thing I want to do to to derail this Eddington conversation, because I just wanted to hear what you guys think about this, right?
Metaphorical Themes in Superman
01:35:03
Speaker
And I'm going to say this and then I'm going to listen and I got to get run to the washroom again. I'll come back. But you guys keep going. Don't pause. guess this time i just want I just want to hear this. so I just want to have this conversation.
01:35:13
Speaker
What do we think about Superman and the question of Israel-Palestine? Like, I just want to know what your guys' thoughts are and then, you know, bounce back. I think that there is a very clear parallel you can do. And I, based on when the movie was being produced and written, like ah it's impossible to believe that that didn't like influence that plot line. But I think Gunn now his instincts are totally different. than And like by desire, like if, if he leaned into it anymore, like then yeah, probably there would be studio inter-intervention, but like he, he obfuscates it enough that you can have plausible deniability. Cause like the,
01:35:51
Speaker
the not Netanyahu character, like their country is like kind of European coded also. So you can be like, oh, well, no, he's Putin. But like it's clearly like it's like, yeah, but also the the conflict is more of like we're giving arms to those people and that it's like it's more is more resembling what other and like, yeah, there's other recent things you can draw parallels to. But like we was like, yeah, America doesn't have that same relationship with Russia where that would make sense. So it's like I think that is definitely in there but I think he is also pulling his punches and then also he has to narratively kind of do a cop like mail a lot of my problems with the final act is that he has the like the Justice Gang kind of exists so that and Superman doesn't have to like do anything too icky, you know, because like this is like the whole movie's a response to Man of Steel and the Snyder stuff. So it was like we will have Superman killing one, but a hot girl could kill someone. So like she gets to the Justice Gang goes and solves the not Israel Palestine and gets to kill not Netanyahu because Superman's deal, even though based on what he says in his interview with Lois, like I do like that scene where she's challenging like so you took him to a desert and you were threatened him like you press him against the cactus like what was the implication of your threat like basically like so you basically like we're threatening to kill a world leader if he doesn't do what you want him to do it's like you can i feel like you still could do a hope hopeful superman and deal with the question of like i mean i guess he just doesn't want to touch that real of like that yeah this is all inherently fascist you know so like the like uh but he doesn't want to have to confront that
01:37:34
Speaker
So that bummed people out when Snyder did it. So he's like, I'm just going to have other characters who do that morally questionable stuff. And then even though, even within the conflict he's resolving, i bristle against the whole, besides it being a mystery box kind for the sake of teasing a mystery villain the Ultraman thing.
01:37:56
Speaker
I thought it was weird that when he finds out like this is his own tangent, like he finds out it's a clone of him. He's like, yeah, fuck that guy. i'll send him into a black hole. It's like, that's not different morally than Superman snapping Zod's neck. because It's like, it's just different aesthetically, but like morally he's condemning that guy to as far, cause it's like a collapsing black hole.
01:38:18
Speaker
I mean, he's almost certainly going to come back like as Bizarro, like that's setting that up. But like, and this is a superman who didn't want to kill like a kaiju he saves a squirrel he has like sympathy for all living things and like even if this clone is a mindless puppet he would be even more his heart would break even more for that like he'd be like oh you were you didn't even like ask to be born like and like he would probably try and do everything to save this you know misshapen version of himself but instead he's like ah fuck your you can you can take a punch down i could go all out on you
01:38:50
Speaker
I don't want to like interrupt Cyrus's thoughts on the question that I asked. I just want to build off quickly of what you just said there about that whole like Superman murder thing real quick.
01:39:01
Speaker
um the The thing that you just said there about like Superman killing someone, right? The way that I saw that in that moment, right, was that Superman was killing off a part of himself.
01:39:12
Speaker
I didn't see him as killing someone. Like to me personally, um it wasn't the same as Zod because it was like, you know, he was destroying a part of himself that may have always existed. Right.
01:39:24
Speaker
And then it unlocked something in me when I was talking to somebody about it after the fact, because something that I've noticed is that a lot of like anti-Zionist Jewish people really relate to this film and have like drawn their own parallels in this way. And I think that like, if you were to look at it from like an anti-Jewish perspective,
01:39:42
Speaker
ah sorry, an anti-Zionist Jewish person's perspective on that moment, right? This idea of like understanding like what you are and what you choose to be like in that like classic like Iron Giant way, right?
01:39:55
Speaker
I think it really works personally. Like if we look at it from like a metaphorical standpoint, but at the same time, I understand Superman, you know, all that stuff. I get what you're saying for the metaphorical thematic standpoint. I just I just I guess it's like as a character like that that's still a living as far as he knows, that's a living thing, even if it has like stunted, like, you know, cognitive prowess. It's still.
01:40:22
Speaker
Yeah, de they they go out of their way to show that he has sympathy for every living thing. And then it just seems like there should at least be a reaction shot of like that. He doesn't want like as he as that.
01:40:33
Speaker
not uh uh uh not bizarro is like getting sent to the black hole that he's like oh he's there's like a he's like sad you know because that is a part of him that would even work with the metaphor too of that like even if you're destroying a toxic part of yourself it's still like painful but it doesn't seem like he has any issue with like that this is just like a almost like destroying I'd say you' like to destroy a short robot, but even has sympathy for the robots because the robot that wants to call Gary, he's like, all right, I'll go. I'll respect your autonomy. So it's like yeah it just seems like a little the characterization that they go out of their way to paint of this like, you know, Boy Scout, which I like that they leaned into that. Like, I think Corrin Sweat does a ah good job. i was just like, he should kind of care more about this like this thing, you know, like even if you don't want to think of it as a person, but it's like it's still a
01:41:25
Speaker
You know, it's got a heartbeat in the brain. i see your point. I do. I understand where coming from in that sense. So I understand. And I also like incorporating my thoughts now in that sense. ah
01:41:40
Speaker
I want on your to know your thoughts, so I didn't mean to, you know, sorry, take it away. Yeah, it was very interesting to hear all of that, of course. My reasoning with the film is I think lot of people who, let's say, are more average audience goers who don't think as much about art the way we do, I think their reactions to viewing Superman as against Israel, I think that is like an authentic feeling about like how the emotional tide for not everyone, but a lot of people has been changing the past two years.
01:42:13
Speaker
i think in regards to James Gunn specifically trying to say that the film isn't exactly doing that. I think that's a bit cowardly. absolutely. Intentional or not.
01:42:24
Speaker
Because if it is intentional, that's like very crass and just pure market. And if it's unintentional when he was writing it, then it's just kind of out of touch in a way you don't want him to be.
01:42:37
Speaker
All his interview stuff seems a little weird. Like, and like, I kind of just have to watch the movie as its own thing and not think about his answers to like stuff because like, yeah, it yeah yeah it leaves a weird taste in my mouth. Some of his recent you should stop giving he has stuff to work on. He's like, was like, go do that.
01:42:57
Speaker
Yeah, so that's basically just my standing. I don't fault people finding those themes in the film, but I think trying to specifically say, well, I think trying to say that was its main purpose is a bit flawed, but also I think the fact that I don't think it's necessary to criticize the film completely on those grounds because there's lot of other movies or low budget in our year that do touch on those politics with more thought and nuance. just kind of does cut I do see how it does feel awkward when it's like a big budget movie designed to make a lot of money. It's a clash.
01:43:40
Speaker
I agree with you that it's like cowardly almost of James Gunn to not like stick by it, right? That's the the worst part about like the fallout of this movie coming out, right? Is that he's refusing to like make it clear one way or the other because...
01:43:55
Speaker
in the reality like we're looking like even today right like a lot of people are now coming out that they're against the israel uh palestine you know they're against the the genocide you know and they don't want um this to happen anymore and they're now staying saying that uh openly and they're actually condemning israel right and even like three weeks ago right people wouldn't have felt as comfortable to do so, right? And I think that, like, maybe in, like, a year, maybe in two years, right, James Gunn's going to just be open and be like, yeah, I meant that, right?
01:44:29
Speaker
But I do agree that it's, like, cowardly to not stand ten tones down and say, like, yes, I meant that, right? The reason I ask this question is because, like, um I've seen this response from people online who have been very dismissive.
01:44:43
Speaker
of this idea of it being about Israel-Palestine, right? And what I suppose is that that doesn't matter, is that like the the parallels are close enough to where it's like you need to use that as a way to get your coworkers to talk about this. And the fact that this is happening is better than no movie doing it.
01:45:02
Speaker
Right. It's in there for you to engage with. But then I also think it's very easy for like the average non politically minded person who generally just trends conservative, you you know, like a conservative person who's not like your Tucker Carlson Ben Shapiro's who's going to be like Superman's woke now.
01:45:19
Speaker
They don't read the movie as overly woke or political in any way. And they're just like, yeah, he's like being nice. You know, it's like about the and hope and being being nice to people.
01:45:30
Speaker
Which just is what the that's everything. like It's just we just said that's what Joe is saying. And in that we just need to be we scar to be kind of brought it back. Full circle.
01:45:44
Speaker
Full circle. ah love it Like I need to run to the washroom. I'm going to mute, but you guys keep going because I hate that I derailed the conversation through Sinners and Superman. No, no, that was that was those fun. I've been wanting to talk about about that. Like, like i liked it. It's just like, yeah, I was like, there's there's things about it that where I'm like, you could have done a little more. So...
01:46:05
Speaker
um i don it's it's He made Star Wars, but he didn't go all the way with the Vietnam War comparison. Because like, yeah, he wasn't like popcorn blockbusters can openly engage with that stuff.
01:46:19
Speaker
Even in his interviews, he could have done something as wishy way if he was, as you said, like the tide is shifting. And it's not like, I don't know, within industry circles, if maybe that is still career suicide. I don't think it is the same way it was initially, but no. it is it is still career suicide unfortunately i i get that yeah i think he could have done something as wishy-washy as just like if someone asked like is this about israel palestine he'd be like it's an anti-hate movie he should have just done he should have gave it a taiko hatini answer he's like
01:46:53
Speaker
And then he should have been like, it's the most bisexual movie of all time. Let's just say Taika Waititi. How gay was Superman? So gay. oh So gay.
01:47:05
Speaker
Man, that Taika Waititi football movie might be the most forgettable movie of the decade. i still haven't seen it. Wasn't there a Nancy trans streak in that movie? I heard something like that. Inspired on the team, right? I think so, yeah.
01:47:19
Speaker
that movie... It just doesn't exist. No movie exists. So that's in some movies that don't exist. That movie is anti-matter. If you touch it, it just blows up in the computer.
01:47:32
Speaker
It's like the lava at the bottom of the pocket universe. like It just kind of just like is like dissolves stuff. Exactly. I'm going to go link this tweet about Eddington because it's something I really want to talk about because...
01:47:47
Speaker
I had a very strong reaction to this. Oh, okay. I did not know that this was a specific thing. i just was like, you know, by the third act of, uh, yeah, this is audio podcast. I'll describe It's like at the last end of the last X, when the the Antifa shows up, you know, there's like this large, like statue on on top of the, when he sees like the burning cross, but you know, that leads to the ambush and all that shit. Like there's this like weird,
01:48:17
Speaker
statue issue thing and I was like, Oh, well, is this just more, you know, like there's kind of weird imagery seated already with the Emma Stone's like art stuff. And then, but I was like, is this, did I miss, was this something like that she had been sculpting before where it's somehow like he's just seeing it now out in the world as like everything is like going to ship. I didn't realize that that is Zozobra. It's a pagan effigy. So so he's he's cycling back to, I mean, this is this is cooler than the pagan shit Midsommar to me. okay This is this is what this this we kind this the kind of pagan stuff I want to see.
01:48:56
Speaker
i have a story about... I'm going to wait until time it comes back because it's so funny. So it explains, had like such a strong reaction to this, even though it's like five seconds of um an almost three-hour movie.
01:49:12
Speaker
And there's a lot of this I will just wanted unpack because, first of all, this thing just looks freaky. It looks freaky and like, you know, there's always like kind of nightmarish descent into madness in third acts in Aster movies. So I was just like chalking up to that. But then I was also like, without knowing the specific Santa Fe context, Tony, you're back. I'm caught up. It's all good. Yeah. Okay. It actually links back to James Gunn in a bit, but you finish first. Well, was just going to say, besides the Descend to Madness that getting at that point, I was like, are we supposed to read some kind of, is this supposed to be some kind of weird racially chart? Because it's like a big lips, big nose, and I wasn't sure.
01:49:57
Speaker
i was, you know, as just someone who's been raised on culture that is casually has racist, you know, like grew up loving Pokemon and then, you know, had to, or drag a lot of anime, weird, huge Japanese things, characters with those features.
01:50:16
Speaker
And then realizing that like, oh, they're like making fun of me. What's let going on here? Yeah. was going to say, when this thing popped up in the cinema, had such a strong reaction to it because it looks like the costume of the ghost in the first James Gunn's original Scooby-Doo movie where there's like this white ghost in the beginning.
01:50:38
Speaker
that yeahre that they're trying to capture. When I was a kid, that was like the scariest thing i have ever seen in a movie. And I would just like dream and have nightmares about that thing for so long. Just because it has also the same, like it's a white clown with like a smile and then like these black buttons.
01:50:58
Speaker
And that just makes me, just made me jolt because it reminded me ah that as a child. And i think that's what I liked about anything is that if it feels nightmarish in the way that nightmares and dreams.
01:51:10
Speaker
You're just like in one scenario and suddenly without a transition that makes sense. You're just in a new scenario with something else. And think that's what a lot movies that called dreamlike are doing. And I think that's what Astor does especially well on Eddington and Bo is afraid. You're just going through your subconscious Yeah, especially... Oh, no, I was just going say, like, if third some third acts in Astro movies, even though I've liked all of them, I, like, I don't check out as the wrong word. It it doesn't, like, i still enjoy it on, like, a visceral level, but then there's there's something that feels off about how, like, and specifically Midsommar and Hereditary, the character the main characters are in like...
01:51:53
Speaker
drugged or in trance-like states so that like their autonomy is reduced but even though that does lead into a different kind of dream state like you mentioned like uh kiyoshi kurosawa who's inspired by maybe you guys have watched any of the uh like horror from the producer like val lutin who did like cat people yeah and i walked with a zombie Like, like, Kiyoshi Kurosawa was on the, the Scorsese produced documentary about Val Loon, like talking about like, oh I can see the influence here of like, the dreamlike states here.
01:52:27
Speaker
But the way that Aster uses it, I, cause like these characters are almost like be becoming undone. i'm like, I like it more when someone's like actively a participant pi in their undoing rather than like, we just put a trance on you and you're going to do it.
01:52:41
Speaker
So I kind of prefer that like, as the, the, the final acts of Bo in this of like everything's going to shit for him, but he's still fully like loose, even though he's like, what the fuck is happening? Like he is still there and just, you know, but trying to react to it best that he can.
01:52:59
Speaker
And I think that it does a good advantage. I was, I was reading, uh, Cyrus, your, uh, letterbox review where you were talking about how the action shot, And I noticed like it did feel awful. I was like, I don't think is he if he if he's intending this to be like a thrilling shoot him up, I don't think that's what he's going for because it does feel more like just like an esal extension of that nightmare. Cause as he's like running, cause he's unarmed for a lot ah a large part until he gets to the gun store.
01:53:28
Speaker
And I love that beat of like, just like waiting outside and looking at the sign and then, and then he burst out with like the machine gun. But like before we get there, he's like climbing a mountain and going around. We've spent so much time in this town, but it feels like the the the space stops making sense in terms of like where everything is in relation to each other or that it's been turned on its head. And it feels like an intentional like night. like or You lose your directions or you open a door and it leads somewhere that it didn't lead before. and it's like...
01:53:57
Speaker
yeah wait what is a path that takes in finlindi Yeah. Like I, I gotta say like this, this sequence, right. Is like some unholy mixture between like the heat shootout, uh, in the end of that film and like the video game that the kids are playing an elephant.
01:54:13
Speaker
You know, there's like a meaninglessness to the violence in the sequence. There is a lack of weight in the violence of the sequence. But like the way that it's captured is very visceral.
01:54:26
Speaker
You feel the weight of the bullets, right? Joaquin Phoenix's character, we actually like, it's it's like, I don't mean to be like a fucking snob about this or whatever. Right. But I think this is like a really fucking good action sequence.
01:54:39
Speaker
And I mean that because, know, Ari Aster found a way to make an action sequence where you feel the perspective of his character, the weight of him killing someone gives him satisfaction when he's fighting against the Antifa, right? You understand that he is getting something out of that. However, you see the bodies that he's shooting, they fall down, they're framed weirdly, you know, the camera pans away from it too quickly. You don't really get the impression that they're actually there.
01:55:10
Speaker
You don't like like the the best kinds of action scenes you you see the action then the reaction and we only really see the action but somehow aster is finding a way to like make that action work for the audience because we are so long for the ride with walking phoenix at this point we have fully gone down the deep end we we have bought into the globe twitter ah sorry the globe antifa twitter so assassins appearing right and to bring it back to the statue that we've been referencing here like it's it's it's a connection to something that he would have done in it in midsummer as well but to something that we've been speaking to previously with the pueblo cops as well as cross his own inadequacy within this community.
01:55:57
Speaker
ah The fact that this burning effigy is happening at the same time that he's doing going through this shootout in the final sequence there is a representation, again, of him not belonging.
01:56:09
Speaker
I feel like That is a threatening totem to him. Despite him living there this entire time, he feels out of step with the space that he's in.
01:56:21
Speaker
And everybody else there belongs there more than he does. And that's the ultimate inadequacy that Cross knows is true deep down. And even in the shootout, we are feeling that.
01:56:31
Speaker
Right. am i awesomeset No, I think that's probably what he's getting. Even if you ask him, maybe he's just say, I just put that in there to throw you off because it's weird. But that's definitely in conversation with what the movie's doing like that. This is the local culture, but he doesn't belong to part.
01:56:47
Speaker
He doesn't feel like he belongs to anything, which I feel like is why he clings so hard to his campaign, because like he does. He feels like a fake sheriff. Like it it feels like the local law enforcement. i mean um Pedro Pascal makes reference to like that they had to lay off these people because there's like, you know, police brutality and stuff from front from his other deputies. But it's like this is like feels less real than the Andy Griffith's law. It's just like it's Andy and Don Dotson forcing the Saltad community.
01:57:18
Speaker
But at least there's like jail cells. Is that like that? Like they just feel like that that this is like Yeah, you'd be like, yeah, they just don't have the budget, but it just it just feels like that they're playing pretend. Like, especially like when the the protests are happening and then the white deputy is like in riot gear that like, this is just like, this is
Law Enforcement and Conspiracy in 'Eddington'
01:57:35
Speaker
cosplay, you know, that there's no, what is that for? Does a crime happen in this film.
01:57:41
Speaker
I just had that thought. Is there a single thing that happens in this movie that the cops actually need to be called out for? No, all this stuff is done by him. I mean, there is ah the homeless man. only thing is the homeless person.
01:57:53
Speaker
The homeless man's outside the bar, which is like, you he's been told to leave, he won't leave, and they've now closed the door for like their protection or whatever, and also the COVID-ness of it all. like They're like, ah, who knows what this guy's carrying. But why are they there?
01:58:10
Speaker
They shouldn't be there. They are already breaking the law. I love that, too. He's like, no, wherever the mayor is, that's the mayor's office. The mayor owns a bar. I mean, that's like, oh, he actually is part of the community. He owns a local business, but it's also...
01:58:28
Speaker
definitely easy way to curry votes like that feels like that should be illegal of like you could just get someone a drink and be like, hey, vote for me. i mean He can't do that the same way because of COVID like it's only carry out, but he could still do some kind of promotion thing where he's like, hey, get a free drink next time or something, you know, at my bar because he has a bar.
01:58:47
Speaker
They're also called for the Norse complaint at Pedro Pascal's party, which is just also another example of like suburban pettiness instead like an actual crime. Yeah, they're playing Katy Perry too loud and someone like who's the neighbor that's calling it in everyone's so spaced out, especially when you live in those hills. It's like, where I mean, we see the like, how far away is that woman walking her dog who found him like that seems like that's the closest neighbor. so Who called in? Did she it the noise completely?
01:59:15
Speaker
Who knows? Maybe Joaquin was just like camping out his place until he just went in there. Who knows? At this point, the film like is already blurring the line between like what reality and like the ah reality that cross wants to exist uh it's already there in the ah space if you're actually paying attention there right i i think that do we do we uh see much of what happens in the second half is literal do how much of we of it do we take is in his imagination like where do we where do we draw the line i just want to read the room there
01:59:53
Speaker
For me, I kind of land on the same kind of Bo is afraid spectrum of like it is is emanating from his own insecurities and paranoia, but it is also literal like that like that's like what the nightmare is for him. im like oh now my worst like like even for the the the conspiracy mom like when they start shooting like she's like oh they're here they're here you know like i said this embodied there like like she doesn't even specifically say and to you like because he i don't think he's i did it like he just says that it's not pedro pascal like i love how casually he's like yeah no it's not him i killed him
02:00:29
Speaker
and And it seems like that's like endeared some kind of loyalty to the like when he's in his state at the end, even though that like she's really the one like with, I mean, yes, it's the tech, technocrats with the political power, but like she's functionally the the mayor, but she, she still wants to like, you know, make sure he has a bed to sleep and is like, take care for it in that way. I feel like that she's like, oh, you find it like that that's like validating for her that she, that he killed this guy. Like, like, no, you were right. He did rape your daughter and that's why I had to shoot him, even though that's not a part of why any of this happened.
02:01:05
Speaker
and It's just, yeah, all these deluded people. Yeah, i think that I think that that's the the day is literally happening, even though in that nightmare sense, it does feel disembodied of like, they just appear, you know, like we see them there, there's a plane they have, and they drive, ah they have vehicles that they drive in, but they also like when they're in the streets, they kind of just like move like shadows and like, you know, they're not like people, you know, like, but but but that's all part of the fantasy becoming real. I'm i'm kind of surprised that there's even that Rittenhouse turn at the end, right? Because, like, the fact that there is a person that the Rittenhouse character kills in order for him to become the celebrity, and the fact that you have to kill that person to save Joaquin's character, that means that on some level, there was some kind of Antifa soldier, right?
02:01:53
Speaker
Or people on the streets, but but were they... and Like, like is is that just the narrative? and like Exactly. They... I don't know what the alternative would be it would be. They're just like masked people with guns, but like, i don't know, if people do just show up and shoot. Like this is, a man it's America. So people show up and shoot places, you know, like that does happen.
02:02:13
Speaker
Or was it like what I was saying before with the old man who threw the fucking thing in the window in my eyes, at least, you know, like, was this just like the, the, the narrative had already been built up based on what they've read and what they preconceived. Right. And this is just like the natural, actual conclusion of that.
02:02:30
Speaker
I feel like it is like a self-fulfilling prophecy of like these guys were already out because he is watching a video of like some ah assault on cops that like you see on the one Antifa's phone that he drops is like confirming like oh this was these guys so they're already out there Antifa-ing but then I feel like that like somehow that when his story gets out that they're like, well, now we need to go there.
02:02:55
Speaker
Like they weren't even in Eddington was not in their crosshairs at all. Like that town does not matter in the grand scheme of things. But like, ah except to do some tech companies, but like, you know like, now, because they're, they're out there and being painted as the perpetrators of this, they're like, Oh, yeah, now we'll come.
02:03:13
Speaker
Like, like, I think it is like kind of self fulfilling in that way. But like that he conjured them, but they were already out there like being boogeymen. It was was my takeaway. They're like tulpas.
02:03:25
Speaker
If you if you, you know, thought becomes for, you know, I mean, I feel like that's not based on, I guess there's other stuff, that that's an idea that he's definitely familiar with. oh like and Like, yeah, if enough people believe in a thing, it just becomes real.
02:03:42
Speaker
Yeah, I think you're onto something there. Like, I just didn't, I heard the word Tulpa and I go, whoa, you know, like I'm Keaton and it actually makes sense there where it's like, it's this perceived reality and everyone buys into it, right? And it becomes the thing that everyone is actually afraid of.
02:03:56
Speaker
Yeah, it's kind of like American gods where it's like the gods only exist as long as like the only way to actually kill a god is to stop but if everyone ever stops believing in them and like the belief is their power. And and that without without that, there's there's there's nothing.
02:04:11
Speaker
ah You're ruminating on this now. You're shooting. I mean, I just like invoking Tulpas because then it is like, yeah, David. No, I mean, he didn't invent Tulpa's but... As an interesting question, the one element that I would think most would be unreal would be, again, this the assassins at the end who are fighting.
02:04:34
Speaker
But also, again, because as you said, with the Ridden House character and his ending, they do have to be real in some form for that to make sense. ah It's an interesting question. I had considered before that the events weren't in the world of the film happening as they were.
02:04:51
Speaker
It was more like nightmarish in tone. But now there's a perspective I'm curious about because I think and's especially these last two movies, the last stories, they're more open to that. But they don't yeah like force their that way. It's like...
02:05:05
Speaker
Right, like there's never shot in Bo is Afraid where you cut to someone else's perspective and what you see negates this like paranoid, anxiety filled world and the conspiracy with the mother and all that. that day It's like, and then similarly in Eddie to everything we see only confirms the things that are in Joe's head. That's why I think the Topla analogy fits because it's like only becomes more real than And once it becomes a story, like there's a hero now people are talking about it.
02:05:37
Speaker
But it does. i did have that. thought I think it's definitely playing with that idea of when the he's running through the streets and the first person he shoots when he has a machine gun is the Pueblo cop, you know, yeah that is what pops out of nowhere.
02:05:50
Speaker
yeah yeah he comes out of nowhere he takes the the guy's leg off and now he's bleeding out but then he sees and antifa shoots him in the head and now he's
Comparison to Classic Films and Societal Manipulation
02:06:00
Speaker
dead conveniently so like but we never ah see another perspective on it other than the ridden house kid but he shot someone and there was people who were shooting in the streets so that like something happened To me, that does feel like like a kind of inversion of the of the ah the taxi driver ending of like, was that real? And is he, or are people like treating this like that that he's a hero? But but but like a fucked up, like but torturous version of it because like he's never exposed as being a hero. His ah delusions are told to be true, but he's an invalid and he's cucked, you You like, like that it's like he doesn't it's not it's not like it in the taxi driver. He's a hero.
02:06:45
Speaker
And then the girl of his dreams comes up and he gets to turn her down. You know, like the ultimate incel fantasy of like she's into him now. And she's like, not no, no, thanks. ah You know, so but but but he doesn't get that part of it. He just gets the yeah, publicly, they'll probably, don't know, like build a statue of Joe or something when he dies. But like he doesn't.
02:07:06
Speaker
What does that do for him? and then twenty years somebody will demand that it gets tear it, tore it down? Yeah, like like the the family of the the one like that protester girl have kids and those kids will be like, this is, you know, this is fascism, tear this down.
02:07:24
Speaker
But to to go back to what ah Cyrus was just saying about the this, you know, the reality of this moment, right? um I think what's fascinating is that whatever path we go down, right, whether or not we ah believe that like this Antifa soldier appeared on the street and yeah you know, Rittenhouse stand-in came in and heroically saved the day, or if it was just a stand-in for somebody else, what have you, right?
02:07:50
Speaker
I feel like despite all of the different theories that we brought up, I feel like politically we're all still going down the same path, which I think is what's speaking so strongly to Ari Aster as a filmmaker, right?
02:08:01
Speaker
Because like the fact that we're able to still see his intention, no matter how far and roundabout of a way we get to that point, I think that's really interesting. The fact that we've able to to do it in that way.
02:08:14
Speaker
And then also to go off of the Tulpa point, right? Because, you know, this is just like a personal thought of mine, right? This is something that I've carried with me. And it's like urban legends, you know, this is the family tree.
02:08:26
Speaker
Boom, urban legends to conspiracy theories. They're literally like literally connected, right? And the reason they're connected is because they're, you know, these stories that we pass down to one another in order to make sense of life, right?
02:08:39
Speaker
ah Conspiracy theories, they occupy the same thing as like the person with the hook in the door, you know, and oh my God, the person was there, right? Jeffrey Epstein, in a way, occupies that same space with modern people, right?
02:08:53
Speaker
Where, you know, Jeffrey Epstein, at least in this case, is very real, you know he has done these things and we know that right but it's this fear of uh trafficking it's this fear that there is this otherworldly power that is out there that is willing and able to intercept your life and take that away from you specifically that's the fear that's there and with ah at least these dumb americans right even if that fear is never likely to impact their own life um And it's all in pursuit of this, ah you know, solid gold Magikarp thing, as we said, right?
02:09:28
Speaker
All of these things that we've discussed about, they're literally just distractions. And they'll continue to be distractions over and over and over again because ultimately they're useful for...
02:09:39
Speaker
ah The goals of this tech company and the reason that I bring all this up is because we talked about the Pueblo cop being shot and the Pueblo cop getting shot ends up involved like his memorial becomes the impetus of the windmills that power the fucking but gold Magikarp.
02:09:57
Speaker
Yeah. and so let's think about that for a second right like you've got this solid gold magic car ai technology plant that's using the death of a native person to ah you know give it goodwill right and then the per like the kyle ridden house stand-in has become like a national celebrity where you know they're a hero and so is cross right while we've talked about the indignities that cross suffers and you know how pathetic all of these characters are in relation to one another ultimately the goals of white supremacy are upheld somehow the tech industry is still moving in that direction and ultimately those characters despite not deserving their fates get
02:10:41
Speaker
somewhere in the realm of a better fate than the other people in the story. Yeah, the real villains are in plain sight. Like, yes, like Jeffrey Epstein and sex trafficking exist and they are a real thing. But the conservative fantasy notion of that, it kind of obfuscates the real villains who are often there's like a clear money trail in real life of like who were the corporate interests that controlled.
02:11:05
Speaker
things are like, it's not yeah like, like, like, the it's funny that conservatives latched onto the matrix and started using like black pill red pill because like my interpreter, like that's one of my favorite movies and series like the but the Wachowskis were using the matrix as like a metaphor for I mean, it's exploring a lot of things like transness, but I think it's also the matrix itself is a metaphor for the veil that like capitalism, like puts over you as like a system of control of like, that it's, it's, it's don't look at this stuff because you need to go to work so you can be a functional part of the system.
02:11:38
Speaker
But it's like not it's not there's not a literal hidden second world where there's like, you know, you put on they live glasses and you can see though the coded messages where that they're the evil people increasingly now just don't hide the thing they're doing. So the the the fantasies that these people constructed are just But mean, like the whole Q movement was predicated on the absurd notion that Trump was going to be stopping the trafficking, which is funny that the blowout we're seeing from that now. but But it was just another hero fantasy. It's not like all fascist fantasies.
02:12:17
Speaker
You know, like I invoked taxi driver and like a vigilante fantasy is inherently fascist. Like that's all the these things are is like that some people want to be a hero and ah be important.
02:12:29
Speaker
that That's all that that that amounts to. i think what you both are saying about like conspiracies and the role they play in our lives, something I think about, I think people are talking about like how 2025 hasn't been as good a year for movies as 2024 or 2021.
02:12:43
Speaker
but twenty twenty one but feel like a lot of the big auteur movies of this year all feel really connected. I feel like with Eddington, you connect that line about conspiracies and the role they play in our lives with Cronenberg's The Shrouds.
02:12:58
Speaker
Because those both are like movies where conspiracies are like this tool for either like self-deception or for like, like, especially like Guy Pearce's character where conspiracies are basically how he uncucks himself in life and tries to like throw Vincent Kinsella down the same path.
02:13:15
Speaker
I also think you can like- But fails. Yeah, true. i think you can take Eddington because I feel like Paul Thomas Anderson's one battle after another. You're going to have lot of people compare the Antifa soldiers in this movie with like the revolutionary politics of that he's probably gonna go for because it's based off vineland and also like what's anderson's phoenician scheme that's also about like an economic conspiracy in a way and like the people planning that said that one's kind of a twist because it's kind of like the inverse of reality and that it's this is rich guy giving up all his wealth to make something better elsewhere think it's really interesting that all of these filmmakers
02:13:58
Speaker
ah are using very different cinematic tool sets and languages to focus on like the same ideas at the same time. Because it feels very... it feels like something is percolating in the water with them and they're all converging.
02:14:12
Speaker
Absolutely. And like even though 2024 a bunch of like if i was look at like movie my top movies from last year that like how many of those ended up in like now my like don't know like top 250 or whatever if i was to keep that list updated but like i i loved a lot of those movies but i don't i don't see the same exact like there are things especially like you can look at the creasing trend of like how many horror movies are dealing with like birth stuff you know like for sprite mean yeah like But um I think what you guys are touching on to to be is is like more ah there. It does does feel more potent this year or percolating. Maybe just because we're all so fatigued politically about all the bullshit. But the that I mean, who knows? Because like.
02:15:05
Speaker
I mean, these movies would have been in production being written at least a couple years ago, but like the fact that this they're all coming out now in this moment does feel significant. like it's something I think there is something to... It's all connected. There's a web.
02:15:19
Speaker
Adam Webb. Your web connects them all. I could podcast about that for four hours. But yeah, no, when it comes to um this connection of conspiracies, I'm glad that like this this idea...
02:15:33
Speaker
you know, is coming up in this way, or you know, ah one and especially now it really sort of modern context and how these filmmakers that are approaching it. Right. I feel like ah every, you know, couple of years, right.
02:15:46
Speaker
People like make issue a challenge. right? They'll say like movies are dead, right? And then like a couple years later, you'll get like the fucking biggest middle finger to the the idea that movies are dead that you've ever seen, right? From like five of the biggest auteurs who are alive, right? And I feel like we're getting a similar version of that.
02:16:05
Speaker
But this time it's with this idea that there are truly no modern films, right? That there has been this period that people have been so obsessed with reverting to the past that that there hasn't been this proper rectifying with the cell phones and how they live in our lives, right?
02:16:21
Speaker
Or how they occupy our lives. And I think that this is like a challenge to a lot of these filmmakers where they're like, can we adapt what we've already established
Adaptation of Storytelling to Contemporary Issues
02:16:30
Speaker
into this moment?
02:16:31
Speaker
And I think that the reality is, is like, Orso Well said this, you know, if you can have an idea, you can shoot it. It's a matter of like what, how you capture it, right? Like, that's really it, right?
02:16:44
Speaker
um So when it comes to these movies, you're getting all these great filmmakers who are able to make these great modern films because guess what? They're great storytellers. So that's the way they're able to translate that story.
02:16:55
Speaker
But the film that I wanted to relate specifically, because you guys brought up these great examples, i wanted to bring this one forward because I'd seen Kurosawa's Cloud, of the 2024 film. So see it, yeah. Neither of you seen it?
02:17:07
Speaker
No, it hasn't been playing anywhere near me. I trying to see if my local theater is going to play because thought it was playing a Kurosawa movie in the next month or two. um I'm going to take other measures to watch it. have other venues of acquiring the the film. and That's what I was going to say. If anyone's interested watching Cloudy, shoot me up.
02:17:30
Speaker
It leaked like last year, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I was against pirating it then because like it hadn't even had a theatrical release yet. And I'm like, come on guys, let's give this chance yeah to like make some money.
02:17:42
Speaker
Yeah. Pirate it away because this movie, like um it's best of the decade material, right? And so what it's trying to say about like the ways in which we live now relating to the ways in which people lived in the past and how those things bristle up against one another, it's very much there.
02:17:59
Speaker
but one thing that it does is that it really underlines how evil and vacant uh the way of living now is without like trying to pass it off as like a value judgment instead it's like trying to show like the the ways in which people exist itself fundamentally based on how we understand like survival It is broken.
02:18:23
Speaker
And and um I don't think I've ever seen a film do that. That almost sounds a little Red Roomsy because that's kind of what that felt like. Because it's not just about like the the the glut of like serial killer porn in the true crime podcast. It's like, no, like that we are living in these screens and like how vacant as people that that's made us and like numb to all of it. I think it's important for the Eddington conversation. So I'll bring up what Cloud is kind of about and related to the film, because I think it's interesting, especially because I want to hear what you guys have to say about this.
02:18:56
Speaker
But Cloud's basic premise is that you're watching a dropshipper, right? And through a lot of the progress of the film, he's making decent money, right?
02:19:07
Speaker
But the people who are close to him that are making money in ways that are like considered traditional right like working a part-time job or like you know having a full-time job they're not making as much money and they're struggling and to live right and he as a drop shipper he's able to just like make it like that right and it's like well yes he can successfully live and you know be happy doing the way that he's doing it now is he also undermining the old way that things have been done before
02:19:39
Speaker
And in the process, does that dissolve all of civilization in a domino effect, right? And I think that Eddington is about that in a very similar way because, you know, societal pleasantries, you know, ah the benefit of the doubt, ah good faith in argument, right? That's what this film is about, Eddington.
02:20:00
Speaker
It's this idea that we are not willing to see each other in the most charitable light because we can create whatever kind of backstory or imagined truth to inform ourselves into thinking that we are better than whoever we encounter.
02:20:15
Speaker
Which i think is why i like that that's never even, and like there's never a definitive thing, like like we were speculating like, oh, is Pedro Pascal's character closeted?
02:20:26
Speaker
What happened with the wife? There's never a clear thing with it because it's this question mark, you can then invent whatever. And because of social media, the internet, we There's all these echo chambers that allow us to just create a whole reality the new realities, whole cloth, and then live in them. So that I feel like this is like the ah a realization of that.
02:20:50
Speaker
need to have you back on. I need i need to see Cloud and then we should do like some kind of Kiyoshi Kurosawa thing. Because he he's not just making movies about the current moment. I feel like when I saw a Pulse, I was like, this...
02:21:03
Speaker
He's like making movies about the future. Like I remember early internet and I was like, yeah okay, they were i maybe I just wasn't as online in the early 2000s as I thought I was because i the fact that he's like so honed in on what that feels like now of like that we're all just...
02:21:21
Speaker
We're ghosts, you know, that the we we we we have, you know, we're we're beings without life because it's all virtual now. was like, was was I really doing that already as early as like 2002 or 2003, whatever, Pulse? 2001. I think that's a 2001 movie. If I'm not wrong, I'm going to look that up.
02:21:40
Speaker
yeah he was like I had to jerk off with that in that time. Like, how could I have been that online? seems Seems impossible to conceive of. Yeah, it's 2001. Yeah. So he's he's somehow he lives in the future. And that's what he's making. He's making he's making movies about like they where we are. Yeah. But then also like this is where it's going. Like, it's getting worse. Don't worry about it.
02:22:05
Speaker
but when when When you guys catch Cloud, let's let's get back together. Let's do this because this that movie is amazing. like I'd say it's one of the best of the decade material. Did you see Chime? His little short?
02:22:19
Speaker
Yeah. yeah like Chime feels like a preface. like I think that Chime is really nice. It's really cool. Right? But... but Cloud's way better.
02:22:30
Speaker
like like er has um yeah and like i like I'm not saying that to be dismissive of Chime. right I'm saying that because like I know some people ranked Chime as some of the best films of the decades.
02:22:43
Speaker
right and I'm saying that Cloud easily clears it. and I'm saying that to hype people up. Right. I mean, that makes me more excited because I was compelled by Chime, but it was one of those things where I had to chew on because I was like, so what is he saying with this one, which doesn't make it bad? Like, I think things that have less clear metaphor, you know, like Us is my favorite Jordan Peele movie. a lot of people bounced off of that because they were like, I don't know. is What is he trying to say with this? And I'm like, well, there are you can draw like lines with class stuff. I don't think it's just about one thing, but like I like it when it's like kind of
02:23:18
Speaker
yeah twisty and maybe even at points contradicting seeming to contradict itself about what it's saying because that makes me like lean in more of like what i i want to i want to interact with the the piece more than when i'm like there's not a clear like here's what the movies are not that i'm also fine with something being on the nose like i invoked they live earlier that's one of my favorite carpenter movies like that's not a subtle movie though so it doesn't have to be subtle uh but also i also enjoy the other spectrum of like yeah what what is going on here that that was that's how i felt what i mean i have a what's going on here feeling with a lot of kiyoshi kurosawa movie by at least i can kind of like draw some kind of like yeah here's what happened and what the themes were chime was like it's about like
02:24:04
Speaker
the intended realities or the intersection of like society and Metal.
02:24:15
Speaker
don't know. Do something. it's less it's It's less tangible. Chime is like ah like an emotion that's really hard to grab onto. So I totally get what you mean there, right?
02:24:27
Speaker
And I don't mean to say what I'm about to say next as like a targeted attack on you specifically, Doug, because like I know this is just going to make your ears perk when you hear this. But there is a ah stretch of cloud that is very similar to standoff at Sparrow Creek.
02:24:43
Speaker
I got the title of correct, right? Oh, you're not correct. Yeah, no, that that there is there is a stretch in this movie, I don't want to even tell you how it's similar, but there is a stretch in this film that is reminiscent of that film, and and I know you love that movie.
02:25:00
Speaker
You should watch Cloud. It is similar in that way. I am going to be watching that immediately. Also, shout out Standoff and Sparrow Creek. It might still be free on on YouTube. That's another movie that plays with the, like,
02:25:13
Speaker
but conservative, what if a conservative fantasy came true? Like, i don't want get, there's a lot of fun twists and turns in it, but it's basically, it's ah like a right-wing militia and it's kind of false.
02:25:25
Speaker
Because you never even, like, I know these militias exist in the real world and there's been movies about them. Like, I also really liked The Order, which was like a real story. But then... When you think about what the end goal of like how enacting like, yeah, they're amassing like they're prepping and they have all these armaments and stuff is like, yeah, because they're going to the plan is they're going to kill a lot of people. ah you A lot of cops are going to have to like that's the other spectrum of like I'm anti cop from the very leftist position. But there's like the contingent of the right wing of like, no, fuck the cops because they're going to, you know, they're upholding.
02:26:03
Speaker
Yeah, they're holding the system that's oppressing me, this white guy. So that's why they need to be overthrown. Like, i would don't even want to tell you how, but like there is the way that it's connected to Sparrow Creek is really interesting. And also like Sparrow Creek, the film itself is interesting because, and also how it relates to Eddington because Sparrow Creek, like it's made by a conservative production company, if I'm not wrong in production. and the The producers are fairly conservative.
02:26:31
Speaker
I believe that's correct, yeah. and i And I don't think that that negates the critique that it's doing, right? i Just like how in Eddington, I don't think that because Ari Aster is on the left, that his lampooning of the left is somehow like insincere, right?
02:26:51
Speaker
This is what it means to have a healthy discourse, truly, right? but that's That's what's funny about like this world that eddington presents and the world that we've been living in in general is that we've been sold that there's this idea of partisanship right this idea that we need to like listen to each other and stop you know letting division get in the way right but the reality is is that the you know more progressive ideologies are more popular right the only reasons that they are stopped is because there are walls put in place by systems of oppression
02:27:22
Speaker
um when it comes to these people though they've created these realities that distract them away from any kind of true solidarity and when it comes back to eddington and ari aster as a filmmaker trying to explore his vision as well as how it relates to you know left-wing politics i think that he's getting a lot of friendly fire from people who are left-winging thinking that he's mean-spirited in his takedown But instead, I actually think that he's tearing down the left in a way in order to build it up stronger, which I think is actually an interesting you know way to go about it.
02:27:57
Speaker
How do you guys think about that? I agree. And I mean, it's telling you, we've already talked about the very final images. I mean, I think he's it's it's of note that not only does it end on the gold magic card data center, that that it's like the credits start playing over it. It's like, like, yeah, no, this is where it's really happening. Like, did this is the all this was kind of just trash.
02:28:19
Speaker
and Like, you guys could like fight each other and like, argue online about but all this. But like, at the end of the day, these are the people who are like, you know, going to, you know, make your own existence obsolete. Like that, that, that, that's the they're they're trying did to to Yeah, you wrote you know, and and I think that's a night i mean because like,
02:28:45
Speaker
actual like the historical revolutionaries, that was like the whole idea of the Fred Hampton Rainbow Coalition. Like, you know, he was reaching out to white supremacists, you know, like, you know, I push back against the bipartisan notion that like neoliberalism put forward, which like Obama's kind of like ah let's reach across it because the modern form of like conservative like the elected politicians are just outright fascist. So meeting them halfway is like still fashion, you know, like, like, it basically just amounts to giving the Republicans what they want. Like, there's never like ah an exchange of like, well, you scratched our back. So we'll help push that, you know, universal healthcare, like, no, there's never going to be an equitable, like, so that kind of partisanship I reject. But the idea of like, like i said, like, like a rainbow coalition where it's like,
02:29:35
Speaker
Yeah, I don't want to be allies with white supremacists, but those guys do have, if you're looking at the macro level, the same enemy, like, you know, the ah the system, the actual system of oppression that's affecting us is that has nothing to do with like the, the, they're, you know, the white, it is white supremacy, but like that, that they're actually,
02:29:58
Speaker
after the same things in the abstract that that we want, you know? even So they that I think Astor kind of is maybe toying with that idea of like focusing on like, yeah, no, the technocrats won at the end of the day.
02:30:11
Speaker
the The one thing relating there using Obama era liberalism or Democrats in general, right, is that Pedro Pascal's character does not trust Joaquin Phoenix's character to ever actually fight back.
02:30:25
Speaker
when he gets assassinated halfway through the film, right? i don't think he's ever expecting that, right? He thinks that like a slap on the face is enough for him to get Joaquin Phoenix to die down. But the reason that Joaquin Phoenix elevates is because it's that real to him. He buys into that pain, right?
02:30:42
Speaker
But to Pascal and perhaps to this, you know, idea of Obama liberalism, right? They don't believe in the actual threat. they they They think that those words are empty, right?
02:30:55
Speaker
But as those things continue to mount over the years, right, and they have no proper defense for that, it just keeps getting worse and worse. and what do they do? They retreat. They'll go on NFNBC and be like, this is a threat to democracy. This is so serious. We need to get out. That's why you need to donate it to my campaign.
02:31:12
Speaker
But like they're not actually like the the actual fascist policy. They're never turning that back like, oh, you got to like, in you know, try and read Sarah V. Wade or like anything. Do any of the damage that's been done here? It's like, no, because they're at the end of the day, they.
02:31:31
Speaker
They think the West Wing is real and that they can just make it. They can make a speech and be like, well, I used logic and reason. it's It's the liberal version of the like facts don't care about your feelings. Like, well, i you know, i I researched and made sure that I was thoughtful in my response. And now democracy is safe when it's like, no, the fascists will just get guns and kill the people they want to eliminate because that's what they do.
02:31:59
Speaker
Yeah, it feels very interesting. Obviously, Astro couldn't have written it before it happened, but like that news story a few months ago about the two Minnesotan, I think, elected officials who were Democrats who were like killed in their homes, that feels pretty much like Joaquin Phoenix's and Pascal in this movie. It's very accidentally predictive.
02:32:20
Speaker
Okay, we're going get into the real conspiracy brain stuff here. I never bought with that story that that guy acted alone because like it seemed so... of He had a full he had a cop car. Yes, you can but build the pieces piecemeal to make your own cop car.
02:32:38
Speaker
But he had, ah you know, like a uniform, the car. he was so organized for one person. And it's like that I feel I was I was of the mind. i was like, oh, they're never going to. I mean, they did capture him a alive. But i was like, the cops are going to shoot him because some of them are implicated in this or something like I was of the mindset that they're involved.
02:32:59
Speaker
I was in the mindset. I thought it was just going to be just a straight cop, not even like somebody pretending to be a cop. That's what thought first because they were over kind of vague at first. They were like someone in a uniform who had a car. And i was like, so a cop?
02:33:13
Speaker
It didn't really add up for just being one guy. still got it. This guy this is ah crazy world we live in now. Well, it was always creepy. You guys are both.
02:33:25
Speaker
You guys are both American, right? Unfortunately. yeah from from a From a Canadian hearing all of this stuff, you know, I'm just going, yeah, it's that obvious to us, too. yeah like It's so clear that, you know, all of this stuff is, you know I don't want to use the word orchestrated because then we'll start to sound like cross, right? You know, but there is a very clear concerted effort from like some right wing, right wing, or even just like Trump's own party, you know,
02:33:52
Speaker
ah concerted effort to consolidate power from any avenue possible, right? And specifically what we were just talking about there with these Minnesotans who are being assassinated, right? It's this like desperate plea right because now ah because now american politicians they're not trying to win on populism they're trying to win on the margins the margins the margins because they know that not everyone votes right and they know instead that they need to like get the right exact thing and i think that that is a representation of the larger rot at the bottom of america right is that this power has been consolidated so few that it all it takes is just like
02:34:31
Speaker
murdering a couple of people to get a couple of votes passed, right? And it's that cynical. And the only reason that there's no but besides the Democrats being feckless is that they keep clinging even in the second iteration of this, which which has already been markedly worse than the the first the first time he was in office, that that they still cling to this idea of norms of like, so like a lot of people would bristle at that idea that that's why like they had elected officials assassinated to push votes through to be like that. no one would do that to get the idea of norms of like that well you would that just simply wouldn't be done like what it's like that's like you said pedro pascal wasn't ah ah expecting him just to get shot in his house because that that's just not what people do but guess what fascists do that and because that's the that's the direct solution so it's like i why it's
02:35:29
Speaker
this Especially in the reality where they're showing and saying what they're going to do and you're still not believing like that the threat is real. It's like, oh... I want to say what I'm about to say with a big preface, right? Where it's like, I believe that the conservatives are fascists. I believe that, you know, they are Nazis. I want to just say that right away.
02:35:50
Speaker
But I think that what Pascal's character is representing there, right, is that while he may have this strong language for what cross is... for what he believes that cross-believes, right?
02:36:02
Speaker
He is not willing to put the action there as well, right? It's very similarly to these Barack Obama-style Democrats, right? Where they'll have the power or the confidence to say, blank is a fascist, blank is this, and is ruining democracy, right?
02:36:18
Speaker
But then they don't actually follow through when it comes stopping them. They don't actually, you know, they just let it pass. Right. And so it reveals that, you know, whatever they were saying, like, yes, they are actual fascists. I agree with that. Right. But the fact that they just kind of stop fighting when it matters the most, right, speaks it's entirely to what the root is.
02:36:41
Speaker
It's pretty jamming. Yeah. Because it's like, correct when they you know ah raise the alarm of like the democracy is at stake it's like okay so do something but then yeah if you're just standing back and uh it's like okay well you're fascist enabler so it's like do you actually not are are you opposed to this or not like we are you're just gonna watch it happen i guess but from an outsider's perspective right there the 2020 election was broadly sold in the american media as like the last time americans will vote you know this is the fight for democracy right uh you either vote for kamala or it's done right and apparently americans chose for to be done right
02:37:27
Speaker
and and And we're just kind of watching the fallout of that ever since, right? And there's this question of, you know will democratic elections even happen after this, right? And I think that directly ties into Eddington as well.
02:37:40
Speaker
Is there a need for democratic rule anymore in in the way that society is run? we We all know the technocrats run everything at this point. The veil has been pulled off so thoroughly.
02:37:53
Speaker
We've all watched Adam Curtis documentaries or at least heard about them. Elon Musk was not elected to any public office. He just clearly bought openly bought his way into power and for like a better part of it you know this year was like...
02:38:07
Speaker
had a lot of political power that he was just do because he had the the I mean, it's like we've always known that the the people with money in the corporate power like that is where the power line. But like, it's just like in the open now. But then that's still not like doesn't result in any. ah It's like, OK, we'll be like, that's no, so don don't do it.
02:38:35
Speaker
If you're fascist, cut it out. My name is Chuck Schumer, and I will not stand for this any longer. but actually reminds me of something. Apparently, James Woods, the actor, has a cameo from an old news appearance on one of the TVs in Eddington. didn't even catch that.
02:38:54
Speaker
I did not catch that. ah so as ah As a massive James Woods fan, you know, I'm distraught myself. I'm a fan of his politics, not his that. that I just really like what he believes. How about the album that he put out?
02:39:12
Speaker
Wasn't it crazy? He was like on TV during like the Los Angeles fires this year and he was crying about losing his home and then people found out his house was fine. Oh, that's funny. I didn't know about that, but that's hilarious.
02:39:24
Speaker
He is. something else. His real life is just his movie characters. His movie characters are incredible, but they're all scumbags. You're the sweet, grossest guys you've ever lived.
02:39:36
Speaker
He's like if a rat during the Black Plague swam in the surf.
Natasha Lyonne and Actor Experiences
02:39:41
Speaker
He's just like that as a human being. Did you guys ever see... Did you guys see Natasha Lyonne on Conan O'Brien?
02:39:48
Speaker
No, I didn't. Is it good? She's talking about how David Lynch told her that AI is like a pen. It's like a tool. yeah No, but I wish that he she did say it that on camera so more people could lampoon her because, you know, fuck Natasha Lyonne for being massively into AI. She works for solid gold Magikarp. That's how fucking bad she is now. She's for the land,
02:40:15
Speaker
but it's know It's a good lesson to know. It doesn't matter how hot you are, can still be terrible in terms of taste. It doesn't matter how many cigarettes you smoke.
02:40:25
Speaker
You can sound like a working class waitress, diner waitress, but like that doesn't mean that you have that you actually are part of the common people. To bring it back to James Woods, because it is related to what we were saying. you know ah she in her In her classic graspy way, she's talking...
02:40:44
Speaker
Yeah, I was on Scary Movie 2, and James Woods, he hit on me. was 16. It wasn't right. It wasn't right.
02:40:55
Speaker
But he's a great actor. Two truths told. it two truth solid You know, as she says, two truths hold that sticks with me. Right. This idea that like she permits this like truly gross thing that happened to her, obviously, and she has have every right to do that. But she is still able to recognize the talent of James Woods as an actor. Right.
02:41:16
Speaker
And specifically in his roles as a scumbag. Right. the the the the the one white whale the the movie of his that i've always wanted to watch but i've never done it and and maybe i'll do it after this podcast because now i'm thinking about it and i'm just like god i should do that he played rudy giuliani in a tv movie and i really want to watch that uh uh where why are asking this movie should be about after grade
02:41:45
Speaker
The acting brain of James Woods specifically? James Woods Natasha Lyonne? both.
02:41:55
Speaker
Yeah, Joaquin Phoenix is in James Woods. was born with his
Actor Roles and Industry Speculations
02:41:59
Speaker
brain. ah was born with his brain. That would actually be an interesting exercise if Joaquin Phoenix just played for Ari Aster just like the most confident sleazebag.
02:42:09
Speaker
When was the last time Joaquin Phoenix played a confident character? Oh, that's a good question. In Herod Vice, like he's stoned and like, you know, kind of seems like he's i mean, he is getting jerked around, you know, by people are manipulating him and stuff the whole movie, but he can put stuff to get like he's like not a bad detective. He's just like does all the same tropes of a noir detective who gets, you know, someone gets to drop on him. They get set up and all those things. But like, yeah, he can put two and two together like he s saw his he's he's smarter than everyone assumes.
02:42:43
Speaker
yeah if i have the answer i the the last time that joaquin phoenix played a truly competent character and no one's going to be happy about me saying this but it was irrational man the woody allen film i buy that i buy that because that film is about him being like a guy like You know, I don't want to spoil it, Doug, because like maybe you may want to watch it and it's actually like one of Woody Allen's better films, you know. I'm just more a fan of his like personal life and choices in this film. may
02:43:16
Speaker
Like I've been reading a lot about Jeffrey Epstein and I saw that one picture, you know, of Woody Allen and Sun Yi right next to Jeffrey Epstein. I was like, Yeah, that's my guy. He's like, Zellig, Woody Allen movie where he's in all the historical pictures, but he's in all the F-scene photos.
02:43:34
Speaker
Yeah, it's not that. He's just out of frame. He's he's just in the corner. That should be the, yeah, the count that does like Paddington in every movie, just like lurking in the background. But yeah, kind of blurry, like out of focus, like a cryptid picture.
02:43:50
Speaker
yeah yeah you Like a Bigfoot shot. a shot Suicide Squad, but Woody Allen's there. You know, like, can see it now. I've had the idea for a long time of canceled Suicide Squad. Bill Cosby, Woody Allen, Kevin Spacey. Kevin Spacey. Kevin Spacey's already killed people, so that works.
02:44:13
Speaker
but Do you think he'll be back in like real? I know he did like some kind of Amazon straight to Amazon movie like last year. Peter 5-8. That movie's hilarious. I've seen clips. But do you think he'll be back in real movies? Because like the way that like other actors talk about including, disappointingly, like Sharon Stone, they'll be like, it's so terrible they did to him.
02:44:34
Speaker
and I'm like, what? What did they do to him? He's going to get his The Beaver moment, like Mel Gibson got from Jodie Foster. That's an incredible pull, and I agree that that's probably going to happen at some point, you know, like maybe some like auteur.
02:44:48
Speaker
yeah not not not to discredit Jodie Foster. She's an auteur as well, but at the same time, you know, like somebody... Somebody's going to come along and try to dust off his legacy like that. And I agree. on v and He'll be in Natasha Lyonne's AI-driven movie. Yeah, she's going to have some problems casting that as well, for sure.
02:45:07
Speaker
should be in the next S. Craig Zoller movie. That's who i want to see canceled actors in. Because, like, mel gets on Mel Gibson's so good in Dragged Across Concrete, so, like, let's get Spacey and whatever his next thing is. Spacey and James Woods.
02:45:25
Speaker
Spacey and James Woods and S. Craig Zoller. Like, um I'm just going to be I'm just going to put all the cards on the table. You know, that's Craig Zoller. He's awesome. And I honestly, should be directing movies right now.
02:45:39
Speaker
Like, I feel like I really want to see what he has to say right now. Even it's fuck if it's fucking deplorable and he's saying something fucking gross, you know, I think Dragon Across Concrete was like more a woke than he thought it was.
Clint Eastwood's Political Nuances
02:45:53
Speaker
No, that's always the best part of when conservative filmmakers or writers are kind of like, like Sicario was written by Taylor Sheridan and like he probably is like, well, yes, obviously the DEA is doing all this unsavory stuff that they got to do. it That's probably like his point of view on is like, but like, then, you know, the movie is like a horror movie.
02:46:15
Speaker
it I love when there's that like discrepancy and and sometimes they're actively grappling. but Like I feel like Clint Eastwood to his I mean, I don't I don't know personally if he's still like I in my mind, he's I know he's Republican, but I don't I i just can't pitch picture him being like a Trumper like ah yeah that he's like gotta be like just voting Libertarian or something. I don't know. Clint Eastwood the age inflation. He was like a Republican when like Bob Woodward and all the presidents men said I'm a Republican.
02:46:44
Speaker
Right. Yeah. and And he does grapple with the the ah precon, what should be preconceived, like conservative of viewpoints and notions. Like, like the i the fact that like, ju I know he didn't write juror number two, but like the idea that. He's a director.
02:47:00
Speaker
He's a director and he is definitely he didn't like cut scenes out that are critical of our justice system or leaning into the ideas that cops all the time said by a cop character, JK Simmons. I love his character. And that is like, yeah, yeah, cops get tunnel vision all the time. And we'll just like, focus on one person, not look at anything else. And it's like, I don't know, ah lot conservatives who will like, open themselves to those ideas, especially like it's like, if if you have the the filmmaking platform in voice and then are doing that out in the open. That's very compelling to me.
02:47:33
Speaker
i love tightrope, which he technically didn't direct officially, but he kind of did. But that's like the woke Jallo Clint Eastwood movie. I haven't seen tightrope in ages. You're going to make me watch this movie tonight. It's really good. Yeah. favorite its of yeah i need to reason that screen where I saw parts of it and I was like, I did not know he was in something this boring. I mean, he's been in movies where there's sex and are romantic before, but I'm like, no, this movie is like smutty.
02:48:00
Speaker
It's so good. that's There's a gym scene between him and Genevieve Bourgeois that is like very romantic. It's very sizzling.
02:48:11
Speaker
Heday is in it? Oh my god. I gotta check out this chest hair. gotta...
02:48:19
Speaker
but I don't mean to interrupt chest hair measuring, but at the same time, you know, we've been talking about Clint Eastwood for this long, you know, and and I've just got to bring up my favorite movie is ah Richard Jewell is like a modern masterpiece.
02:48:35
Speaker
I think that Richard Jewell, like you wrote wrote conservative, liberal, you know, a Democrat, Republican, no matter where you stand, i think that we can all come together in the hatred of the FBI.
02:48:47
Speaker
Right. I just, I just think it's like one of those perfect movies where even if you choose to believe it as like a Trump defense film in terms of like, you know,
02:49:02
Speaker
and the state, you know, it's going after the wrong people. You got to have the right people, you know. I still think that Richard Jewell is speaking to like some kind of like homesy, you know, blue collar thing that we just don't really see from a lot of like dramas anymore.
02:49:19
Speaker
And like if there were any films released today that were to star Jimmy Stewart, since the trial of the Chicago seven, it would probably be Richard Jewell. That's a great point. Yeah. was going to say, people forgot about this because a million things have happened made in these last seven months.
02:49:36
Speaker
But I remember like one of the big criticisms people had about Richard Jewell was his sort of female journalist sleeping with their source. And then turned out that one of the journalists on Twitter who led the charge against that was sleeping with RFK Jr. while doing a story of on him. I remember that.
02:49:54
Speaker
I didn't hear about that, but that's hilarious. Yeah. Lay that out. Like, plainly, that is... LOL. Yeah. But also, like, I agree with people when they say that the development with Olivia Wilde's character is sexist. I like to invent that for the film is stupid.
02:50:12
Speaker
Right. However, however, and this is like, I don't think an insignificant however, however, this reporter lied about a person being responsible for mass, like a possible mass casualty event.
02:50:25
Speaker
Isn't that worse? than like sleeping with the FBI for information?
Perception of Women in Society
02:50:31
Speaker
you know Like, are we missing the form for the tree, the forest for the trees here? So here, I got to explain this to you since you're Canadian. America, a woman if a woman does anything sexual, regardless of context, it's the worst crime ever and she's a whore and she should have a scarlet letter engraved on her head.
02:50:51
Speaker
ah And Alain will come and carve carving. Dang! No, but I agree the the the that's much worse than, ah you know, an affair that didn't happen. Affairs, who cares?
02:51:05
Speaker
any Anyone still listening to this point, if you're about having a affair, i don't care. Go ahead. It's not of my business. I mean, I don't know. Maybe your marriage sucks. Like, a go go fucking cheat on your spouse then. Maybe the other person's marriage sucks and it needs saving. Yeah. Walk around and find out. Let it happen.
02:51:24
Speaker
Literally, let the chips fall where they may. I will say, though, I'm an Olivia Wilde defender. I know people give her a lot of shit because she directed the movies they hated, but I think she she worked with more good directors than people give credit. Like, she worked with Scorsese on vinyl, which I defend. yeah I'm a vinyl defender.
02:51:45
Speaker
I'm a Griffin Newman and fan, I can tell. Yeah, they thank you. And I also like her bit part in like Babylon, which another movie people hated. I thought i thought that part of the movie was the most fun.
02:51:58
Speaker
was all Brad Pitt's ex-wives. This is a good runner. i mean, that's a ah big swing that I find interesting. I'm not on the side. It does get annoying where like every like couple weeks. someone I feel like it's kind of slowed down or maybe I just blocked the people who who did it, who would be like,
02:52:15
Speaker
Babylon was a masterpiece and you didn't appreciate it. And I was like, yeah, I liked it. Calm down. It's, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's like Like, I'm of the, it's not terrible, it's messy, but that makes think it more interesting to me, but also, and there's also more, the only scenes that get showed are like that party scene, and then the end montage, and I'm like, there's like, at least visually, like, more interesting things and in the movie. Yeah.
02:52:46
Speaker
There's another two and a half hours you're forgetting there. You know, like why oh are you sharing those? It's just those two scenes and that's why it's... Yeah, and it's like those two scenes and like the one snippet of the score that people are obsessed with.
02:53:00
Speaker
dan yeah ran here um Actually, to go back to Clint Eastwood for a second, i feel like Clint Eastwood is a more interesting director of jazz than Damien Chazelle, even though I'm not Chazelle hater.
02:53:14
Speaker
Bird is an incredible film. Forrest Whitaker, one of his best performances of all time. i Like, that... that that Clint Eastwood got drug addiction better than like most people, which is like really fascinating. Like you you could draw a straight line between ah Frank Cannonlotter's brain damage and Clint Eastwood's bird.
02:53:37
Speaker
And that's really fucking weird. But also awesome. Yeah, i have I have a thing I want to do where if I had my own podcast, i would host a series where we go through every Cannes Film Festival and decide what should have won each of the awards.
02:53:53
Speaker
And Bird would have been my Palme d'Or winner for that year. Because Clint Eastwood should be a Palme winner, but he wasn't. And you think that Bird would have been it? Yeah, I think Bird is the strongest film in that year's selection, 1988 jury.
02:54:06
Speaker
Like, it's an amazing film. Doug, have you seen it? No, i'm I'm adding a lot of stuff to my watch list from from this comic, which I love having talks about. I need to see that. I mean, I love Forrest Whitaker and Clint Eastwood. Yeah, that's the danger of having fun nerds.
02:54:25
Speaker
Yeah, you just end up with a long list of things. I don't mean to be like that annoying cinephile, but there's like this scene and in Bird that I'll never forget where it's like, because he's addicted to heroin, right? Like, I'm i'm remembering that correctly, right, Cyrus?
02:54:41
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, and and like he he's like coming into the room... And like his wife is there with their kid and they're listening to opera and he's like coming in and he's like singing along to the opera as he's like high on heroin and like dancing around the room, trying to be a good husband.
02:54:58
Speaker
And it's like, holy fuck, this is like one of the most layered sequences in Clint Eastwood's whole filmography. Like, like I'm i'm not trying to undersell Clint Eastwood. Right. But he's a very like straightforward filmmaker.
02:55:10
Speaker
Yeah. He's somebody who's like, here's blank scene. The next scene is going to relate to that. Right. And bird is a lot more subtle than that. So it's like when, when sequences like that happen where it's like, you're just watching how a drug addict addict is lying to their family.
02:55:27
Speaker
It like, it it is really one of his most accomplished films. And I'm glad that we're talking about it right now because I feel like nobody talks about this movie and I love it. I need to see it.
02:55:39
Speaker
Add it to the list. why While we're talking about tendentially related films that people should watch. and In one of our messages, Tony, I brought up and in conversation with a standoff at Sparrow Creek, 1999 film, Arlington Road. I think that's also in line with this.
02:56:00
Speaker
It's not just... ah conservative conspiracies. it's just It's just conspiracy paranoia, but this is specifically, it's 99, so this is pre-9-11 conspiracy, and it's Jeff Bridges suspecting that his neighbor in the suburbs, Tim Robbins, is a terrorist. So it's like, you know, this is back when you still suspected white people would be terrorists. And it's the director, I've really only seen one other Mark Pellington movie, Mothman Prophecies, but it's an awful all-timer movie for me speaking of conspiracies also shout the mothman prophecy book if you think if you find the movie interesting at all read the book is good that guy's like okay yeah take with a grain of salt he might be under some delusions about stuff but regardless of how much of that book actually happened to him or not it is fascinating the way he thinks about the world is fascinating tulpa's come out up
02:56:57
Speaker
a lot. the hes He posits that like aliens, Mothman, angels, do like basically all weird phenomenon is like ah the same thing kind of. It's like, ah but being given form by some by some kind of ultra-dimensional being or something. He like goes into like hologram universe theory.
02:57:16
Speaker
It's Crazy. But anyway, Arlington Road. ah So it's by the Mothman Prophecies director. it's super paranoid. It's just like, yeah, in in the quiet suburbs, nothing would ever happen here or would it?
02:57:29
Speaker
And... um With a score that's bought by Angelo ah Barmente of ah Twin Beats. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Holy smokes.
02:57:40
Speaker
The score, and I don' forget who shot it, but it it looks and sounds incredible. it's it's it's It's my right... I mean, I love thrillers, ah but I love paranoid movies, basically, where you get to like live in the the mind of... That was always the fun thing about like Hitchcock or De Palma movies. Cause it's like, what if this thing that you think that that was always like the conclusion usually, I mean, I'm trying to think of exceptions, but it's always like this thing that you're, maybe it's just as a person with anxiety, who's always thinking you like, which was basically like a form of inventing mini conspiracies where you're like, I think everyone hates me, but like, yeah,
02:58:18
Speaker
and and In conspiracy movies ah where it's like, no, the the worst case scenario thing that you think it might be, like, it's true. Like, that's the like a events what blowout is for like two hours of like, yeah, no, it's what you think it what you think it they're doing. They're doing it.
02:58:35
Speaker
It's happening. and they're going to get away with it. Cyrus, you have any thoughts on that? or No, i agree. I think one my favorite directors, just to go through for filmography, is Roman Polanski, and Paranoia is basically his entire thesis of the world and experience of living. Like, you guys mentioned Chinatown.
02:58:54
Speaker
i think that came up earlier today, and it's like kind of funny because Joaquin Phoenix's name is Cross in the movie, but it's basically, he has like the exact opposite amount of institutional power as Noah Cross in Chinatown. and basically And they both get away with it, but in very different tones.
02:59:15
Speaker
yeah right like no like no cross was never going to like be held accountable for anything but like joe cross skirts but it's like it's it's like a very comic cosmic coincidence that he is not undone and then he you know he has the result that he has so like it is like you said it's like a very it's like an inverse of of that yeah yeah it's like uh you know uh Jack Nicholson's character in Chinatown, he's not really like a a good detective, right? But he at least has like ah some kind of moral compass, right?
02:59:53
Speaker
And if we're going to relay that to Cross's character in Eddington, right? Like, you know, he has no moral compass. He only really knows what is going to make like his life better.
03:00:04
Speaker
or at least and like immediately ah better for his wife. Right. But that's only in the idea of what his like mind thinks it is. Right. And if we're going to relate to Roman Polanski, you know, like it kind of seems like cross would be like the villain in a Polanski film.
03:00:20
Speaker
I feel like he would be like the person that another character would be like trying to like save, like they'd be like needing to be saved from cross, you know, not say that Polanski had like the best, like understanding of, you know,
03:00:34
Speaker
life and politics and all that stuff. but Arlington Road. I wanted to bring the back because you talked about Mothman prophecies and that film, like I've studied the Mothman prophecies.
03:00:46
Speaker
I know ah that. It is something that like i have, uh, yeah like we We talked about like ah urban legends and I feel like Mothman prophecies is like a almost like a ah gap between ah urban legend and conspiracy theory like Mothman's in between there. So it's like our that really piques my interest.
03:01:04
Speaker
um But I feel like there is this, ah you know, idea that like, is the truth something that people even need, right? And that's something that we can bring to Eddington as well, right? It's like, would knowing that Solid Gold Magikarp is the true villain here, and they need to put all of their attention there. Would they even be able to build a coalition to even do that?
03:01:28
Speaker
Would they even really care? Would they they just let this happen? Yeah. based on modern America, no, they would not be able to do any one, not be able to organize and then not be able to, you know, have any kind of institutional power to stop it.
03:01:42
Speaker
Cause that's just, uh, we, we don't, we don't do that. Yeah. that That, but also like just plainly, right? The idea, the the promise of solid gold pound your car, right?
03:01:55
Speaker
Whatever that is. They're bringing jobs. that did disrupt the The abstract, in the politician abstract way of, job you know, like not, I don't know when you'll be able to sign up and start working. Like, I can't guarantee you personally this job, but jobs, there will be jobs.
03:02:11
Speaker
yeah you're You're totally right. Like this idea that like AI will not replace jobs, it will just create new jobs that, you know, you'll have to apply for. Okay, yeah. And it's like, ah what are those jobs and how sustainable is it? Because like there's just going to be an AI bubble, right I'm not I'm not deluded enough to think that any thing that's come out like it can't be like push back. But in terms like this current iteration of it, that there is all these companies are pumping money into it. Like they're trying really hard to pump up its one in significance. I remember my parents had 60 minutes on there's like some AI company guy who's been like, yeah, within a few years, we'll probably be able to use AI to like cure cancer. you know like they're just like doing saying shit like that because they need this to work so bad. They put too much money into it. And I think there will be like a nine.
03:03:00
Speaker
ah probably They'll probably just get bailouts from the government or something. That's what happens when people are destroying the world, run out of money. they're just like, here here's some more money. Go try again. When do we look at what AI has become, right, or what AI is going to be, right, ah you know, at least from an American perspective. and like And I know it's cringe as a Canadian to speak on American politics. I just wanted to say that every hour. It's very reddit of you. It is, you know, and I apologize for that. You know, I'm doing my own kind of land acknowledgement, you know, in this way.
03:03:34
Speaker
Okay. But when it comes to...
03:03:38
Speaker
but But when it comes to this whole idea of AI, right, like this, especially Americans, ah you know, grip on it, right? um You guys don't care.
03:03:50
Speaker
You guys have no regulations. You're destroying the regulations that exist, right? And you're just pushing it forward, right? And the only things that'll ever stop it is like, you know, a celebrity is featured in a revenge porn.
03:04:03
Speaker
That's the only way that like regulation is going to be brought into fucking AI. Right. And that's terrifying. And it has to be of very power. It can't just be like a you know, any, so it has to be like someone with Beyonce. Yeah. It's got to be Beyonce. You're right.
03:04:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. and And even that might not guarantee, like, it'll make sure Beyonce is protected, but it might not, you know, do actual affecting change. But it's, yeah, it kind of seems like everyone's just accepted it.
03:04:36
Speaker
i got to ask Grok why my wife left me later. And it's... I wanted to read the room. Have any of you ever asked Grok a question? No.
03:04:47
Speaker
No. Neither have I. We're all Grok emergence. I could Google whatever, and Google already has, like, but like Google's gotten so much worse. It's funny how much worse to everything in the internet, tech-related, has gotten terms of usability.
03:05:03
Speaker
But at least Google, I can search through results, and it's like, Grok is not – like some people talk to AI, like I saw someone under the Esquire's like 25 superhero list. Someone's like, Grok, what's your list? It's like, Grok can't have opinions.
03:05:19
Speaker
It can find other lists for you and maybe do an aggregate of like what the most common movies and other people's lists but it's not going to be like, yeah, I really resonated with like the James Gunn super.
03:05:37
Speaker
Yeah.
03:05:40
Speaker
Grok does not have a thoughts of itself. Like that's the actual, like, yes, we, we should be concerned in trying to regulate it. But in terms of like the literal, like ah Terminator apocalypse, like Skynet's not going to become active because we're going to blow ourselves up so much longer before. likes Like it's not going to be like an AI becoming sentient, launching the nukes because it decides humanities. just going to,
03:06:07
Speaker
be because of some stupid bullshit or like probably resources or something. I don't know. I feel like asking Rock a question would be like a level of personal demeaningness that you can't get back from. It's just like...
03:06:22
Speaker
I'm trying to think of what good equivalent would be, but really just feels like you gave up on yourself as a person. if If you have to do, if you asked, if you've asked Gralek a question, what you need to do is you need to buy Joaquin Phoenix's fit from her, install whatever apps that lets you talk to like a chat GPT girlfriend. And then that's it. You can never talk to or date a physical person like ever again. That's all you can ever be. Cause that's like, yeah, that, that you just have to commit to being little,
03:06:51
Speaker
loser that it's nothing but high-waisted sweatpants red button-up shirts you know that's your life now yeah and actually the hour-controlled video games i would i would dress like that it's kind of what it looks kind of nice i'll be honest with you guys i like this is a podcast exclusive you know i have joaquin phoenix's outfit like any day any day i want i can literally dress like him from her and i did that on purpose you know but That's a personal failing. And I'm trying to get better.
03:07:20
Speaker
no No, I appreciate that you guys giving me the platform to allow me to get better. i don't think his actual fashion is the issue. I think it's that he's he's dating and AI. Right, right, right, right.
03:07:32
Speaker
Tomatoes, tomatoes, you know, potato, potato. If you can form actual human social connections, it's totally fine to dress like that. It's it actually would probably be hot to people. Like, I think I think there's women who definitely see someone who looks like that and they're like, wow.
03:07:50
Speaker
So, yeah, those pants are really high. <unk> Like, I want to know what's under them. Why are they so high up? Is it a belly button or is it a penis? I want to know.
03:08:02
Speaker
All right. So three hours in, we're talking about high pants and. yeah Yeah, I'm sorry. No, no, no, no, no. This is I love when we just like get into everything that those are my favorite records, but I like I'm glad you guys have been enjoying this. I feel bad that i'm I'm wasting your time. I never feel bad about the listeners' time My time is not being wasted. I can't speak for Cyrus, though. Cyrus, if your time is being wasted. I was out till 2 in the morning, so anything productive I could be doing, I wasn't going to do anyway.
03:08:33
Speaker
Hell yeah. you know You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to run to the washroom again. Get this back on at 8.10. let we'll we'll start We'll start wrapping it i mean, because we're going to pass. Let's do that. Let's do that.
03:08:44
Speaker
well i'll be I should probably eat something soon. And I think we've already passed the runtime of Bo is Afraid. No, we should like actually keep going until we've gone longer than all his movies added up. Maybe that's what's under the top 10.
03:08:57
Speaker
Maybe that's what's under Joaquin Phoenix and her high waist pants is the penis monster from Bo is Afraid. yeah
03:09:10
Speaker
I saw someone complaining or are saying it's better that there's not like tie-in video games anymore. Like, yeah, it's probably good that that we don't have that because the Sinners game would be like bad or mid. I'm like, that's fine. I would play that mid game, but there should be games of like shit like Bo's Afraid. there should be a Bo's Afraid like tie-in game. There should be... I have something to... Okay, so I feel like the Bo's Afraid video game is Binding of Isaac.
03:09:37
Speaker
I need to, I have, I own it and I've only played, I got it before I really, cause I feel like roguelikes, mean, like that kind of game has been around for a while, but I, in terms of like where it's, it's feel, it's like every other indie game now is like that kind of game, like that kind of game. just happened like I'm and now I'm just circling back to like being like oh wait i actually really like stuff like this so I mean I was I was late to lots of trade ah trends like I didn't get into like any of the souls game until like like all the trilogy of dark souls have come out and then blood bloodborne all bloodborne had to do is be like it's got lovecraftian themes and I was like um okay I'll check it out
03:10:20
Speaker
I was gonna say, I feel like the Eddington video game is like the Sims with like dark mods installed, like setting the psychopath ones, all the ones that make everything worse.
03:10:33
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, the ones that let Emma Stone get impregnated by incest, like those kind of mods. I will say, though, Emma Stone and Austin Butler, this is like probably their hottest screen partner combination in either of their careers.
03:10:48
Speaker
i mean, they're both such beautiful people. ah I saw someone show... ah Yes. Like I like that there's been several movies now where it's like, it's, he's so hot that it like ruins people's life. Like there's this, I mean, you could argue Elvis is also about that, but the but main other ah one would be like in the bike riders, which really came and went in terms of like, it wasn't a lot of disc, not that ever needs to be discourse on every, every movie, but shout out, shout out bike riders.
03:11:17
Speaker
ah Me and Nick reviewed that one last year. it was, it was higher on his, uh, uh, last year, li but I still really enjoyed it. It's just... And you get to see Tom Hardy do an accent. He's doing he's doing fucking Marlon Brando. The Wild I like it's literally his character is like if a guy, the modern clue would be like a guy who watches Drive sees Ryan Gosling like that's literally me.
03:11:42
Speaker
Then commits his life to like starting an organization around that, not just like changing his fit and like doing that. It'd be like, no, this guy saw Marlon Brando and was like, I'm going to start ah a bike club and like a way of life.
03:11:57
Speaker
I will say that is kind of the Russian community in Sacramento was kind of what you're describing about the drive guys. I mean, hey, it's a way of life. I'm not good enough like I'm a good driver. But if you're like, can you be a getaway driver? was like, oh, I don't know. don't know if I could do that. It's a lot of pressure.
03:12:17
Speaker
don't know more thing. Oh, wait, you first because you just got back. All to bringing up bike riders, bike riders I haven't seen yet. um And I'm a big Mike Nichols fan.
03:12:28
Speaker
ah But however, um I've been less of a Mike Nichols fan because he's been casting Michael Shannon less and less. And personally, like, ah like, ah like Giamatti is number one, but Michael Shannon is a number two.
03:12:41
Speaker
Okay, we're getting less Shannon in Michael Nichols movies is making me little upset. I don't want to spoil bike riders, but it's not like the most screen time. There's good use of Michael Shannon. he He's doing a voice.
03:12:53
Speaker
There's a voice that he does. didn't even know he was in the movie. Like, there's an Eastern European ethnicity that he plays. I won't say which one.
03:13:03
Speaker
What? but What? I've seen him play Russian before. I've seen Room 104. He does that shit. Great episode. Underrated show. i Right? It is. um Now I've got to fucking watch Bike Riders. I'm heading to the tabs now.
03:13:18
Speaker
You guys have watch lists. I have tabs. yeah and It's a good time. It's not like a mind-blowing movie, but it's like I like the characters. I like the performances.
03:13:29
Speaker
And it is always interesting because I never have a mind of like oh, this is real. If it's about a real thing, it needs to be like, it's not a documentary, but I do appreciate when it does feel as someone who is very removed from that culture or time. and I'm like, well, this kid like feels authentic. And then and then like you see the credits and they're showing like the ri because of the. um what's what's his name, Mike Feist, he was like a real journalist who was like doing a photo book of the Spiker gang, so then you see his pitch like the real guy's pictures at at the end. and so like
03:14:06
Speaker
ah i i you know like A lot of movies based on real people do that, but like this one felt like, of like oh, Jodie Comer actually kind of looks, and say if you look up, like i like there's clips of this real woman, because I remember people making fun of her voice when the trailer came. was like, she got so she sounded like that. Yeah, she has a squawk box on. Yeah.
03:14:28
Speaker
Well, let's go back to that Coen Brothers thing and also Eddington as well, right? Where it's like people actually talk like that. You know, people actually behave that way, right? And, you know, people may say that depicting them in that way is demeaning to them, right?
03:14:43
Speaker
But the reality is, is that dumb people exist or people with specific speech patterns exist in that way well and you're depicting them I don't know like I don't think I I know that like just depiction alone isn't ah enough in terms of of the but it is better than the not you know what I mean and it's it especially when it's done when you can tell that there's empathy because like even in Coen Brothers movies yes they enjoy can enjoy ridiculing or like torturing these characters but you are still supposed to like as the ones where it ends really badly for him and like you feel
03:15:17
Speaker
bad for them. I mean, it's like, it's like funny, like in a cosmic sense of like, oh it's that's funny that this happened to you. But also you're like, ah, fuck dude. Like if I i would not want this happen to me.
03:15:32
Speaker
I don't know if I've just unlocked the code to Eddington, but I may have just done it. I think we did. Coen Brothers, we've referenced all of these films. We've referenced No Country for Old Men. We've referenced, you know, Raising Arizona, Big Lebowski, Fargo, all these movies, you know.
03:15:48
Speaker
I kind of think that Crosses... arc is actually the most similar to the man who wasn't there. i can tell you that. like and i literally, I literally just made that connection.
03:16:01
Speaker
And I, and I, like, I feel like fucking Drake on that one diss track. Oh, I just made that whole connection. You know, like it's, it's literally one of those things where it's like, it's hurting my brain to now know this. Wait, it,
03:16:13
Speaker
Antifa are kind of like the UFO showing. I mean, it's much more screen time given to Antifa, but it's like this like out of nowhere. I mean, they serve different purposes because like it's Antifa's like karmic retribution and the man who wasn't there. It's like, yes, UFOs are real, but it also does not help. Your situation is unchanged by this fact.
03:16:34
Speaker
Can I tell you my crackpot theory about the man who wasn't there? Please do. Okay, the man who wasn't there, the titular man who's not there, was Charles Schultz, the inventor of peanuts.
03:16:47
Speaker
Whoa, whoa, whoa. that. Here's the thing. Man Who Wasn't There, it's either set or filmed in, I think, Santa Rosa, California. Charles Schultz, he spent the last years of his life in Santa Rosa. His father was a barber, and Billy Bob Thornton's character in The Man Who Wasn't There is a barber. So basically, it's about his family if he wasn't born.
03:17:09
Speaker
His father, really about Thornton's character, is kind of like a Charlie Brown of character. is! If Charlie Brown got involved in a blackmail murder scheme, this is what it would be like.
03:17:19
Speaker
i was I was really wondering why James Gandolfini had that football in his hand and why he kept on... yanking it away whenever Billy Bob Thornton would get to try to kick it, but he kept doing it and and I didn't understand why.
03:17:33
Speaker
Well, and the job of but of cutting hair itself is a very Charlie Brown, Sisyphean task itself. Yeah. as As they point out, they're like, why do we cut it? keeps growing. But like, I can really relate since I've started like shaving myself bald lately. And then it just comes back in faster and like thicker. I'm like, so there's like, I'm just going to keep doing this forever if I want to keep that. so like And to relate it back to Eddington, right? You know, like they're trying their best. You know, they're trying to accomplish this ah in ah in a way that's like, you know, of their own control, but they just can't.
03:18:05
Speaker
Yeah. Pedro Pascal's character is kind of like Linus. you know the same He's like the one sane person. Okay. Can all movies be related back to Peanuts?
03:18:17
Speaker
Well, the thing about Peanuts is it's a very primordial character set. like you It's kind of like The Simpsons in a way. Everything can be a peanut. and I think we've cracked story like on like a fundamental... I'd throw out the hero's journey or whatever. you Like Joseph Campbell. Fuck all that. No, it's... It's in the trash.
03:18:38
Speaker
Yeah. The secret from Top Gun Maverick where he throws the rule book in the book, that's me with all the previous screenwriting, like, Joseph Campbell book story books.
03:18:49
Speaker
Fuck it. Save the cat? No, it's done. Kill the cat. It's done. It's called Roof the Snoopy.
03:18:59
Speaker
but The Red Baron. Also, fuck Save the Cat. No, i mean i think I think it could be useful to anyone who was thinking about going to film school. It's still useful. One, that you can like learn the basics. It's a lot about, I think the most thing is like networking. like You meet collaborators and if it's a good school, you get access to equipment. like Take a...
03:19:19
Speaker
Band of that for sure. But in terms of like so many classes are taught like that this is like if you deviate from this, like I've had I had screenwriting professors kind of mock stories for like that, like would go against certain grains. I'm like, you know, I thought the whole point was that you're teaching us these rules so we can break. ah like That should be the point. This is like, you know what the fundamentals are and then off to the races. But like if you just make every story the same, then you're just making Marvel's slop, you know.
03:19:46
Speaker
Doug, I don't mean to like invasively ask you this question, but like, what did you study in school? Like, I'm assuming this is post-secondary. Yeah. Yeah. and I went DePaul for, uh, initially I was game design because like I'd done lot of summer courses on like coding and I had friends who were doing it.
03:20:04
Speaker
Uh, but then I was like, I, I, maybe I hate coding. yeah quickly that And then I switched to to film and then they had just started a concentration of TV production. And I was that was where like prestige TV was like Mad Men was Aaron. I just got into Breaking Bad. was like TV is the future. all stories should be TV. Now I'm like, but mostly just because of Netflix is streaming. I'm like, fuck off. I mean, there's obviously still good, good, good shows, but i think streaming really fucked with the, and just the, the, the like prestige TV trying to create it as its own kind of like pie in the sky and Sisyphe and tat. It's kind of self-defeating if you're like setting out to do that now. And that's now like the, the,
03:20:52
Speaker
You're trying to just like manufacture, like have a conveyor belt system that makes prestige TV. And that's, don't want that. I'm kind of a, the prestige TV thing I'm tired of is like the end credits needle drop because the Sopranos and Mad Men did it so well when was in December. But nowadays so many movies and TV shows do that. And it's just like and lot of the time, it's just not necessary for, for that particular episode.
03:21:20
Speaker
It's a lot of time. It's just like, oh, we have Netflix money. We can have any popular song we want. So I guess we'll just do a Radiohead needle drop at the end this of this episode. Because why not?
03:21:31
Speaker
You know what it's similar to? It's similar to like modern day action. sequences. There's this this whole thing ah now because of CGI where it's like the idea of creatively shooting a sequence in order to properly capture what you want to convey in a sequence.
03:21:48
Speaker
That's gone. you know In an action sequence because there is CGI you can capture whatever you want to see. right so Let's say you're shooting an action sequence that involves a helicopter. You can shoot any part of the helicopter and it'll least be passable because you've got enough you know South Korean CGI animators to do it.
03:22:05
Speaker
you know But at the same time, you know ah the art is gone. The way in which we capture the sequence is no longer considered, right? In the past, they would design, you know ah Steven Spielberg would design a sequence in Jaws in which the shark can come of up in its exact way in which he knows the animatronic will work and it will be a compelling sequence, right?
03:22:32
Speaker
That consideration is no longer there when it comes to any kind of film, right? ah Now, you know, you can just say, i want a sequence where, you know, a jet crashes into the middle of Eddington out of nowhere.
03:22:47
Speaker
And, you know, we just see that happen, right? And that can just be captured in a wide, right? And we don't need to even consider how that's captured anymore.
03:22:58
Speaker
And I think that that's just tied to also the soundtrack game, where it's like you have these people who get so like stuck in like what they want the temp track to be to where they just incorporate that into the original thing. And then there's also this idea of like, oh, you know, James Gunn is a big filmmaker and he's able to incorporate his favorite soundtracks into his films and he's able to make that important to the plot. Maybe we can do that in our own way, but the problem is they don't even consider the lyrics. They don't consider the tone. They don't consider how it all gels together.
03:23:30
Speaker
And also the editing isn't timed to all that stuff. That's why all these things are considered. we we talked about film school earlier and there's this ah thing that you even referenced before where it's like, ah you know, they'll say like, oh, you can't do blank because, ah you know, the greats do that, you know?
03:23:47
Speaker
And it's like the only way that you're able to do that is just from the free realm of experimentation. Right. on the On the flip side, we're in the exact opposite with mainstream films where it's like anything is possible.
03:24:00
Speaker
And because anything is possible, they don't carefully consider how those things are captured. The lack of restriction is more stifling create creatively. We need to bring back like no budgets need to be small. I mean, everyone should be paid what they are owed, obviously, but like ah all every movie doesn't need to be a huge tentpole. That's like $300 million dollars budget. Like especially. $30 to $60 million is good.
03:24:27
Speaker
Right, exactly. No, you could do a great... Imagine if Fantastic Four First Steps was made for $80 million. dollars I would be so would care about it. I would be so much more excited to see it. Like, yeah, I don't know. I'm hearing things about it. It sounds like there are, like, actual character scenes. It seems like they left a lot on the cutting room floor. But, like, i I want... Okay, like, action is fine if there's thought put into it and, one, it looks cool. a lot of it just doesn't look like anything.
03:24:55
Speaker
Like, I'm only letting lot of stuff fly if you just give me, like, cool images, and I'm not even, like, getting that, especially frustrating when they're, like, basing this stuff off, like, psychedelic, like, Jack Kirby and all those guys we were on so much fucking ass, like, doing the craziest imagery, and then and the movie itself just looks like it's like the... Yeah, so it's like, why aren't you even taking advantage of the the potential here if you're going to?
03:25:23
Speaker
I mean, one, those shouldn't just be all them. I think we are trying to, I mean, once the superhero fatigue hits China, which it has, I feel like that's like- has canary in the coal mine right you know like that they're they're gonna have to be like fuck we gotta we gotta find different ip the mine uh uh minecraft 2 no it's gonna be video game movies right not it's gonna be bad but i'll fucking watch it yeah yeah try try max pain again let me do it this time i that Mark Radberg too. Let's bring back. Neil Kunis, run it back.
03:25:52
Speaker
As different, there'll be different characters. I can use some of that. can I should give Wes Anderson a video game movie to do. Just give him his choice.
03:26:04
Speaker
There's so many cozy games now that are trying to like do a Wes Anderson aesthetic that like, like you just be like Stardew Valley, the Wes Anderson movie, you know? I was like thinking something like Wes Anderson's for some reason. I think about Wes Anderson and Max Payne. I think it's just the narration.
03:26:23
Speaker
i i want him in. He already is doing this. Like I hate people. would wait It's like, yes, he does have an aesthetic, but the idea that he makes the same movie over and over, like there is a visual and thematic through line. Sure. Cause that's what,
03:26:36
Speaker
the artists do in their work but like he's doing different genres within that framework and different kinds of stories so it's like if yeah doing like a hard-boiled cop revenge thing but by Wes Anderson yeah I would fucking watch that like No, but here's the thing. Because Wes Anderson, all his recent movies are about like different types of storytelling. And Wes Anderson, Max Payne video game thought would be about like the actual video game itself. And it was like the ah characters would be in the video game.
03:27:06
Speaker
And then the external world would be like the designers and like the players. There's meta levels in the game where Max is like either hallucinating or like and on the edge of death. And he like, he's like, I just realized I'm in a video game. The worst fate. ever So like, I feel like the Wes Anderson movie would just lean in there. We would spend more time in those metatextual sequences than the actual like revenge plot. Like that that, those would almost be happenstance. Like we would spend a lot of time in that ah like narrative contemplation. And then it'd be like pop up. in And in like a cartoonish way, like he just shoots some people or something. I have question.
03:27:42
Speaker
Have you both seen Phoenician Scheme? a missed it when it was in theaters, but I'm watching it probably tomorrow. Okay, I get it. Because I didn't want to, was going to say something that would be like a big reveal from it. And I didn't want to do that. But I'm just going to say, to take it back to Eddington, feel like Bo is Afraid in Eddington.
03:28:01
Speaker
It's very interesting that Ari Aster has a lot of Martin Scorsese friendship because like Scorsese is a big defender of him. And Scorsese, he picked Wes Anderson as the next Scorsese for like that Time magazine thing.
03:28:17
Speaker
And Bo's Afraid, Eddington, and all these recent Wes Anderson movies, and even Killers of the Flower Moon by Scorsese, lot of them are about like narrative and artifice and how stories are told.
03:28:29
Speaker
in a very direct way. Like with Eddington, you can argue it's like the political narrative and sphere and like and ads and social media. and just to build off of that so I go I was gonna say the end of uh killers of the flower moon is actually I mean not the very ending final image but like the radio play like conceit that is kind of very Wes Anderson-y like just like dwelling on the very nature of like yeah how are we telling the story and why am I this white guy the one who's telling it so yeah
03:29:04
Speaker
I have to say this because like I have a personal love for this filmmaker. Right. um But I think that the the person who should have been chosen at the same time that Wes Anderson was chosen as like, you know, the successor to Martin Scorsese, it should have been Larry Fessenden.
03:29:20
Speaker
It should have been the filmmaker, horror filmmaker, Larry Fessenden, because he's also in Killers of the Fire Moon. And that's not even also the first time that he's in a Martin Scorsese film. Oh, yeah. It's the second time.
03:29:30
Speaker
What was the first time? He's bringing out the dead. Oh, he's in that too. He plays a heroin addict in that film. He's like in a cutaway scene. He's, he's like, he's with suffering from withdrawals and he's going blah, blah, blah. I need, I need my stuff. You know, yeah the the thing is, is personally, I think that Larry Fessenden is one of the greatest filmmakers of the, like the nineties and the beyond.
03:29:53
Speaker
So I should watch Wendigo tonight is what you're saying. You should watch all seven of his films. Yeah. but i know All seven of his films are amazing. Have you seen Habit, Doug?
03:30:04
Speaker
I haven't seen any of them. lot of these are things that will show up on like Tubi or like Shudder when I'm like scrolling through something to watch and I'm like, yeah, Wendigo looks so interesting. I don't know. it only has a 5.1 on IMDb, which means nothing. Lots of great movies have like fives or six on IMDb.
03:30:23
Speaker
I don't mean to cut you off, but I just have to lay this out. ah The reason that I was awake at five o'clock in the morning this morning is because I'm ah being a ah guest on another podcast and not just any guest. I'm going to be on for like four episodes for a full series of Larry Pheasanton films.
03:30:40
Speaker
And I'm discussing I'm discussing from these four episodes and discussing four of his films. But I have to say, All of his films are amazing. he He is on the same level as a John Carpenter, as a David Cronenberg, as a Frank Hennenlotter, Larry Cohen, all of these people. i've listened Stuart Gordon, you know, and and specifically, you're you're talking about, you know,
03:31:04
Speaker
ah digging into these themes and these these ideologies that you don't usually see in in horror films. And he's someone that I would like almost peg as a more progressive Jon Stewart from the 90s in the sense that he's kind of like this Gen X boomer.
03:31:19
Speaker
ah crossbreed, right? Where it's like he's he's distrustful of the systems that be. He's got an environmentalist streak to him. Sorry, my camera turned off. I don't know why that. No, sorry. I turned it off be so I could, i you froze. So I was trying to like, i was like, oh, if I just turn it off and then back on, maybe it'll be. Can turn it back on? Because I can only turn it off. Can you click back on? Now you're moving again. Okay. Cool. Okay. Okay, so I don't know what that was. I can still hear, it was probably my internet glitching for a second, and then, yeah, it just, I was like, yeah, need the movement with the audience. Not that, I mean, that's just for my benefit. Everyone's only going to hear the audience. I get it, you know, like, it's reactive, you know, you want to you want to have that, right? But Pheasanton, I have to say, like, he is
03:32:07
Speaker
He is one of the most forward-thinking horror filmmakers who has ever made film movies. Like, I believe that. like and And I think that, like, you guys, everyone needs to watch his movies.
03:32:20
Speaker
and Like, he is yeah somebody who, like, Everything that we look for in in horror and in just good storytelling, like he's got it. And for whatever reason, he's not considered on the same level as like a fucking Carpenter. And it just makes my blood boil.
03:32:36
Speaker
Well, and here's the thing, like the Carpenter had to fight the studios and ah production companies at every level on all his stuff. Like, could that kind of filmmaker even...
03:32:48
Speaker
exist really now. Like that that's the frustrating thing about the current film ecosystem. I'm not saying that there aren't... There's definitely filmmakers who are dabbling in horror are and so are at least inspired by Carpenter or trying to make things in in that vein. But like the actual like...
03:33:05
Speaker
yeah, i mean, you, you know what I'm talking about. There's a specific feel to his movies and, and even the ones, you know, like there's varying budget sizes of, you know, like as his career went on, but like there's that consistent, uh, I mean, one, the passion, but then also just like the, the, the the voice and just, uh,
03:33:24
Speaker
feel of his movies and and what you're describing now in Fezden makes me excited to watch his stuff but I'm like, ah, damn, it so sounds like it's probably really hard. like like The fact that I kind of only know this guy as an actor, I didn't even, i was like, oh, I've seen this guy and stuff. I didn't know he made movies.
03:33:43
Speaker
I haven't even heard it. Like I said, I've scrolled by a lot of these movies on other streaming things and i've heard I didn't know that this was the guy who made them. So it's... Yeah, there's a lot of talent out there that like people maybe never even see or hear about. and it's I'm glad that you're shouting see him out because I want to watch his stuff.
03:34:06
Speaker
And it's important for me as well, because like he was a mentor of like a lot of big filmmakers like Ty West, Adam Wingard and Kelly Reichardt specifically, you know, like without Larry Pheasanton, you wouldn't have those filmmakers, which is like fucking crazy to say.
03:34:23
Speaker
um But at the same time, ah you know, the the idea of like ah American milieu, you know, like that's what we're talking about here with Eddington as well, right?
03:34:34
Speaker
This idea of where Americans are standing in the world, right? And relating Fessenden's filmography with Ari Aster's, you know, Aster is a genre filmmaker, self-admittedly, and I think that Eddington can be classified as a noir. It could be classified as a Western.
03:34:56
Speaker
But I think that all of Ari Aster's films are ultimately horror films, even Eddington. i i would agree, especially the the last chunk is like... i I feel anxious through all his movies and, and that's, that's the, the feeling he's trying to evoke. And that's like, yeah, that, that, that's, that's horror. Uh, so I, I, I would agree with like, regardless of what other genre trappings you could do.
03:35:21
Speaker
I mean, he described, ah You know, and I also, when I'm trying to tell people what Bo's Afraid is, I'm like, yeah, it's kind of like Charlie Kaufman-y. But like, probably Charlie Kaufman has even said, is like, yeah, my movies are like horror movies about the fear of dying.
03:35:37
Speaker
You know, it's like, so you can be, ah horror can ah extend to a lot of different kinds of things. And sometimes exploring very real homegrown, even though this movie has very surreal elements, this is a very real,
03:35:53
Speaker
ah terror here, especially like once Joe like starts down his path, you're like, yeah, it would be so easy for a guy in this position to do all of this. Like, especially, you know, in a small town in this the climate in specific time period, you're like, goddamn, yeah, he would just be able to get away with it.
03:36:11
Speaker
And then he kind of does. There is a distinct difference between horror and terror, right? Yeah. And I think that Ari Aster is somebody who specifically thrives off of terror.
03:36:23
Speaker
Terror is the anticipation of the threat. It's the, you know, thing that's creeping around the corner, right? And I think that that's what Ari Aster's films are totally based on. Even when we actually get the threat in his films, when it's explicitly shown to us or we're, you know, we we know what the motivations of all of it's behind.
03:36:44
Speaker
It's all in service of the terror. um In other horror films, you know, the the grotesque, the body horror, the, you know, blood and guts, that's what the focus is. But what Ari Aster as a genre filmmaker brings is that the ideas and the, you know, things that are floating around his head are so much more important.
03:37:03
Speaker
um To bring it back to like a conversation we were talking about before when it comes to like Ari Aster as like some kind of hack, right? This idea of him like not being worthy of the status that he's given in today's ah climate, right?
03:37:16
Speaker
um I think that the filmmakers who are the best are the filmmakers who don't talk about films when they talk about their movies. I think that the best filmmakers are the ones who relate their experiences to like paintings, to life experiences, to other art forms, rather than just talking about movies all the time.
03:37:34
Speaker
And when I listen to Ari Aster in interviews, I've listened to three Ari Aster interviews for this podcast, right? I listened to the Chopo Trap House like podcast affiliate program they've got called Movie Mindset where they interviewed him.
03:37:48
Speaker
I listened to the Pod Save America Ari Aster interview. And then I also listened to the Blank Check episode that dropped today with him on Miller's Crossing. I'm excited. Out of all, out of all three, the Miller's crossing one was the one that he hated the most.
03:38:02
Speaker
And the reason why was like, and one thing that I'll point to specifically is that he said on there is that like, uh, it's less worse than, than what else, whatever else I'm going to do for the press of Eddington.
03:38:14
Speaker
Like, like he was openly saying something along those lines, like, and I get the blank check is a very like comedy forward podcast, but, yeah Sometimes you can listen to episodes of that show and you know when things aren't gelling. And that episode is one of them in my books.
03:38:29
Speaker
Oh, really? Okay. Yeah. and And to bring it back to Pod Save America and Chopper Trap House, Ari Aster is so in the world of politics. He is speaking to these things with such clarity.
03:38:42
Speaker
And while we've been discussing film so clearly on this podcast today, we've also weaved into politics very frequently. And I would say that when it comes to the most important parts of all three podcasts that I listened to today.
03:38:59
Speaker
Ari Aster had the most to say when it came to how it related to the current time and the actual politics of things. He's not interested in cinematic influences and nor should he be.
03:39:11
Speaker
Nor should he be. We're we're so obsessed as, you know, people who are obsessed with media itself to look for influences. But he himself has an ideology and he presents it and we're meant to deal with that.
03:39:23
Speaker
And I think that that's something that we just don't get from most artists today. I think a lot of our culture is like, it's fine to, you can even wear your influences on your sleeve in terms of like watching the the thing. And I'm like, oh, I can clearly tell like, like i watching Midsommar. I'm like, okay. Wicker man. You know, like that's not ah a hard pull to do, but like the the film should also have a point of view of its own. And feels like a lot of,
03:39:47
Speaker
stuff now doesn't other than this is a thing I liked, you know, like that they're just like being like, Hey, remember this thing from these movies? I liked this, which is, it's fine. I like stuff and be inspired by it and want to like reflect that in your thing. But like you're saying, if that's your only thing,
03:40:07
Speaker
statement you're making artistically. i don't know, like maybe spend a little, let it simmer in the oven a little longer something, you know, like yeah and come, come have a, I mean, cause these are films are, are made by people. That's why,
03:40:23
Speaker
AI can't make actual art, you know, because people have point of views. So like, let's have that reflected in the film. To build off of that, right? Like, I think that like a lot of ah the apprehension to like the Aster's or the Eggers or what have you online, right? The apprehension to accepting these modern filmmakers, right? There's this attempt to prove them, right?
03:40:50
Speaker
They have to prove to us that they actually mean it, right? There's this intention that people have online often. And it's so asinine to me. It's so stupid, right?
03:41:01
Speaker
How foolish we can be to treat filmmakers this way is the way that I look at it, right? ah Because like how many films did Brian De Palma take to get to where he is, ah to where we see him now, right?
03:41:13
Speaker
How many films did it take for Martin Scorsese to take to where he is now? It took them a few. didn't take them like, you know, many, right? But it took them a few, right? And like, we have to afford that same kind of charitability to any filmmaker working today, right? Because if we don't, then what we're doing is we're just acting as like mini gatekeepers for art in general, right? Yeah.
03:41:36
Speaker
And when it comes to um what Astor is trying to do here, and Astor is a filmmaker himself, right? Just to give the value judgment there. To ignore what he's attempting to do here is to ignore a voice in America.
03:41:51
Speaker
You know? Is to ignore like an an honest plea to somebody that something that should be done, right? And I see this, like, expression online often, expresss explicitly a lot from Americans, where it's like there's this idea that, like, specific kinds of ideologies can't be shown in film without it being cringe.
03:42:15
Speaker
Not even depicted. Like, not even, like, yeah. that and that is Not even, it's like the filmmaker is not even saying endorses this, but just showing this point of view um from is inherently wrong. Like, and I just, like, that's such a...
03:42:29
Speaker
That's such a closed-minded, un- That's the magic of film and storytelling is that we can be transported to like another place, another time, someone else's mind entirely. like That was one of the most compelling things about...
03:42:44
Speaker
I mean, i keep I keep going back to the standoff at Sparrow Creek, but the thing I love about, you know, that movie is straight neo-noir, but the thing about noir and the movies that focus on anti-heroes is that we're, you know, following people who aren't like good people generally aren't great. And that's like and interesting, you know, to see in their mind and see the thought process. and like Like, yeah, that's a movie about like a right-wing militia trying to deal with like an internal...
03:43:11
Speaker
ah problem and it's like yeah those are not people I want to associate with in real life but um I can be riveted by a movie about them like it's yeah yeah it's it's it it can be frustrating to see I know exactly the kind of mindset you're talking about and it's like it's why are we even engaging with storytelling then like that's the point.
03:43:35
Speaker
Try, try, try to break out of this, right? Like that's like, that's what makes this art form so exciting to me. That's all I got to say there. Would Joe like the movie Eddington? I don't think he watches movies.
03:43:48
Speaker
I think he's, the I think he's that like, well, I think he's like Trump. He likes to watch movies like Bloodsport. yeah that makes sense it could anything that's kind of powerful like he i he would probably love like charles bronson like death wish shit you know like because it's like yes that was three and four the forbidden subjects yeah it's like this guy is ah doing it isn't a powerless cuck he just killed an entire mexican gang like that's that's what i want to do
03:44:21
Speaker
see He just blew up this random random gangster with a bazooka because he deserved it. You know? and I feel like ah he would his favorite movie is probably the Bruce Willis Death Wish.
03:44:38
Speaker
I have not seen that. Isn't that ah by Cabin Fever? Eli Roth. Yeah. Yeah.
03:44:46
Speaker
Fuck Eli Roth. Fuck you, Ryloth to the grave. I hate that guy. I've never liked his movies. i feel like I've been, ah you know, i feel like ah people are or smoking some kind of like weed that allows for them to see the same thing in Eli Roth as each other because I've just never seen the same thing that other people have been calling attention to when it comes to eer right Eli Roth as a talent.
03:45:13
Speaker
Have you guys ever liked an Eli Roth film? that likes I liked the fake trailer during Grindhouse for Thanksgiving, but then he ruined it and made the movie real. And it's like, okay, if you're going to do that, this is better be be like the best.
03:45:28
Speaker
i mean, I still haven't even watched the Machete movie because I'm afraid it's not going to live up to the fake trailer from Grindhouse. i It doesn't, right? It doesn't. the The only thing from Machete you ever need to see ah Go on YouTube, watch the Lady Gaga cameo from the second machete.
03:45:47
Speaker
That is the only good sequence in any the machete films. I think, technically, Eli Roth ghost-directed the propaganda film from Inglourious Bastards. That's like a minute.
03:45:59
Speaker
I believe you. Those parts were good, yeah. yeah you know like it was it was it It was then handed to a talented editor to put into an actual talented filmmaker's movie, so...
03:46:10
Speaker
yeaho It has the benefit of that, but you know, it, it, it looked like a propaganda. It looked like what it was supposed to be. So he did, he, he gets a passing mark on that.
03:46:23
Speaker
Yeah. stephen Leave it to Quentin Tarantino to elevate a piece of shit. Yeah, I mean, it kind of makes sense they would get along. i don't i don't doubt that they're probably so similar in some ways, but there's a gulf of at least, i haven't even seen that many Roth movies. I know one way. I know one way that they're connected.
03:46:43
Speaker
Israel? Yeah. yeah Yeah. So Eddington. Eddington. Eddington. I feel like Eddington would have been crazier with Zionism as like an element in there.
03:46:55
Speaker
I'm surprised it wasn't involved. That's going to be the sequel in 2024. That's what I'm saying. You still talk about it. 2020, he had and very specific key points to hit and he gets full marks for...
03:47:07
Speaker
I was wasn't even right. I knew it was going to be like COVID was going to be a part of it. But when we get to the Black Lives Matter in the Floyd protest, I was like, oh, we're he's not shying away from this. Like kudos. Like this is actually part of it. And then it's fully a part of the movie.
03:47:24
Speaker
You know, like that. that does That's not just like he allows for mistakes. Yeah, yeah. That's, I mean, that's bold filmmaking. it's not like that I'm just giving it kudos and credit just for boldness sake.
03:47:39
Speaker
it's It's doing something with that. and and And even if we just want to just focus on, like, besides what the movie is saying, I think everything we've illuminated, all these ways this movie is able to...
03:47:52
Speaker
to visualize so the mindset of these characters. So that that regardless of how you interpret that last act of like, that that this is like their worst nightmares coming alive.
03:48:04
Speaker
i just think that's fucking phenomenal stuff and that it's going to stay with me. I mean, the longer I linger on I'm like, shit, maybe i need to rewatch Bo and make sure that's still number one and this is it. Because like Eddington is right under Bo is afraid for me.
03:48:21
Speaker
personally, because like, I don't even think I touched on this when we started the podcast. I think Eddington's my favorite. Like, and i and I'm not saying that because like, you know, it's the most recent.
03:48:31
Speaker
I'm saying that because like, it just kind of like relates to like my personal interests. and And I don't mean that from a, you know, me relating to cross, fuck cross, you know, I'm saying that because it's his most interesting film. That was my takeaway, even with all the like, like crazy shit. And I was afraid I was like, there's, but Bo is afraid is interesting, weird shit and lots of crazy swings. But some of it, I, this is like more dense and like, there's more to, to, we are, we're, we're almost at like four hours or four hours. Yeah. so we are
03:49:03
Speaker
Yeah. I'm running on fumes. i'm pretty I'm pretty tired too, so we can we could start we could start wrapping it up. But I was just, I was pointing that out mostly as a testament to like, yeah, we got we went on so many cool tangents, but I think that that and a lot of there's a lot of stuff here. that And I'm sure someone will even listen to this to be like, hey, you didn't even touch on that thing. And I'm sorry, but we're tired. So I'm sorry i forgot about whatever parts of the people that didn't we didn't get to.
03:49:32
Speaker
What do you want? Eddington is a movie about what is interesting to you. so like, just listen to this podcast. Just pick out the parts that were interesting to you. you know And that's the best part of the podcast. Yeah, go WordPress and write your off, Eddington. Cyrus gets the joke of the day.
03:49:50
Speaker
That's like joke of the week. Thank you. Thank you. We just started. but Yeah, probably. Probably. Just started. Let's go. 24 hours. Here we go. This is why you go do that grind. Four hours in, you find a good idea. Honestly, that's kind of true because when I'm the most well-rested and like at my healthiest and then sit down like open final draft, I'm like, I'm going to do some great-ass ride. And I'm like, oh, what are words?
03:50:17
Speaker
But then when I'm like running on fumes, and like half awake and I'm in an almost dreamlike state that I'm really like fucking cooking and can, I mean, I'll need to edit it and go back when I'm, but you know, fully awake be like, yeah, make make sure that it makes sense.
03:50:36
Speaker
But yeah. Or does it need to make, do movies even need to make sense? And my opinion is no, they don't. they Fuck you. It reminds me of something. Because I'm the same way. Because if i sit in a coffee shop with my computer open and I try like write a script, I'm just like, I can't, don't want to write dialogue.
03:50:54
Speaker
But one time I was driving and I came up with this entire story idea for a plot. So I just pulled over to like transcribe it to my notes app. Yeah. Inspiration strikes you when it's inconvenient.
03:51:07
Speaker
Not convenient. I would say like what whatever you were doing before was inconvenient. You did the right thing by pulling over and doing that. Yeah. so I should have done it voice. That's what Joe Cross would have done. What would Joe Cross do? Joe Cross would not tip the person that he got coffee from.
03:51:28
Speaker
That's true. Well, because that's the thing. It's it In these people here, the Bring It Off lunch other movies, and we touched on we even brought Clint Eastwood, but we didn't even fully the of it all. Kept kept bringing up and in interviews. The thing that I... Whatever.
03:51:45
Speaker
ah but but whatever I got a fool. Whatever. Unforgiven commentary I'll upload. I actually do that. I watched my friend Chris had never seen it. So me and his friend Dennett, who that's like his favorite movie, we're like, hey, watch this and then record it. So I'll probably post that.
03:52:02
Speaker
But ah anyway, Unforgiven, Little Bill, And Joe, in their minds, thinks they're the hero of their own narratives. like Because like that's Unforgiven, it plays with the it typical morality of of Westerns of, like, you know, the sheriff, small-town sheriff would normally be the good guy and this killer would be our villain and and Unforgiven flips that on its head.
03:52:25
Speaker
This is, we're going to fully spend our time in the head of that kind of sheriff who, because... Initially, like when you're introduced a little bill, you're like, well, I don't agree with his choice, but like you kind of can tell like from his point of view that like that. It's like, yeah, I guess ah he does.
03:52:41
Speaker
He is just trying to preserve order in this town. Like this isn't a real solution that he's offered to like this girl got caught up and he's off. He's telling these guys to give the the guy who owns the girls like some, some donkeys or the horses or whatever in exchange for their damaged property. But He is trying to keep things stable like that. That is what he thinks that he is in the right and he's doing.
03:53:05
Speaker
But as you go along, you're like, well, what is your actual is this is it for the town. This is for you, because like when when that biographer with English Bob comes and he has English Bob in jail and is like kind of fucking with with him and he's He is enjoying big dogging English Bob. Like, like he he's it when he's playing that little game of like, here, I'll give you this gun. You can draw for your freedom right now. He's getting off on the moment of fear that he sees in ah English Bob of like, but he's just looking for an excuse to gun me down. And he will that, that he knows that he's got shit and he wants to, be I mean, he's,
03:53:45
Speaker
he can back those words up, but it is still a fantasy that he wants to live it because he wants to have, able to big dog and be this badass, but then also be like, no, I'm the righteous guy.
03:53:55
Speaker
You like before Clint Eastwood kills him, he's like, I was building a house. Like, like that. He was like, he's like, i'd be like that I'm i'm just so I'm just a um'm just a little birthday boy you you know that that he's innocent and all of this but he he tortured and whipped like a black man to death so it's like convince you in a way that's like even if this was guy was a problem you needed to eliminate him and you make the law because you are the law especially in the in that time it's like yes there's like some sadism there you're like enjoying it so but back to the the um
03:54:28
Speaker
Joe of it all. Joe is rationalizing all these things, but they're not.
Hero Complexes and Societal Narratives
03:54:32
Speaker
It's all for him. That's the conservative the hero fantasy. Like i was talking about, like, are our real victims of sex trafficking and all those those real things. But the whole QAnon thing was not about actually saving those people is about how can I'm going to be take apart. I'm going to listen for the Q drops and me.
03:54:53
Speaker
I'm going to matter and be a hero in this. That's. I mean, you know, essentially, we're here on this this rock, the things we do, wanting to and leave something behind that...
03:55:07
Speaker
no that on On its own, that's fine. Like, that's a very human thing. But then if your goal is just, I want, you kind of just like, I want people to worship me to be, I want to be that important. I want to kind of be the center, center of, if not the universe of my universe. Like everyone in this town should respect me and ah look up to me and I should be the final say in all things. And like,
03:55:32
Speaker
Joe gets a taste of that when that guy is like, oh you're just being, he didn't, he didn't have that in his head initially when he gave the guy his groceries. He was doing, I mean, yeah, the guy should have been masked up when he came into the thing, but he's like, ah well I can, yeah i don't like masks. This guy just wanted his groceries.
03:55:49
Speaker
He just, he's just giving you know, he didn't even ask the guy to pay him back. So like there is that discrepancy where you're like, oh, so many conservatives, that like, you know, the devout Christians and who claim to be people of faith who have morals and things, but then the things they say and support go totally against that. It's like both of those ideas do and can exist simultaneously.
03:56:11
Speaker
Ari Aster is exploring that and I think that's but like at no point do I think he's like, dude, we should feel sorry for Joe, but I think he's like showing that it's like it's more straightforward. love Like, yeah, this guy's awful, but like it most villains don't wake up and they're like, no, I'm going to do it. mean, we do have people who do that wake up like a time for evil.
03:56:32
Speaker
yeah And their' friend they're in Washington, D.C., folks. His name is Alan Dershowitz.
03:56:44
Speaker
ah But most people who do the worst things, are not, I mean, either there's some cognitive dissonance or they're, they they've deluded themselves in some way, or they're just in their minds, they're the hero. And that and that to me is like the main unforgiven ah through line of like, yeah, we're all heroes in our own narratives.
03:57:06
Speaker
That's what got. wella but similar um i like Similar to what we were saying before about um urban legends, you know, and now those are intrinsically tied to conspiracy theories. I think that this film is about how reality is shaped by how we experience it, even if that's not true.
03:57:27
Speaker
And ah this is a movie that um while we are experiencing a conservative power fantasy, we have to be cognizant of the fact that we are not meant to be enjoying this, right?
03:57:41
Speaker
Right. And I think that there has been an outlash, an outcry, I should say, of people who have been, you know, less than impressed with this movie, even though it is on their side.
03:57:54
Speaker
And I think that ultimately, this is a film that is asking for some kind of camaraderie. some kind of understanding between people. And it's not asking for it in the usual, like liberal nonpartisan way.
03:58:07
Speaker
It's not asking for it. It's not asking for us to like put aside ah people's regular everyday ah bigotries in order to ah be happy.
03:58:18
Speaker
Right. Right. um It's a film that understands that everybody lives within their own realities and whether or not those realities are um just or ah feasible, they're real.
03:58:31
Speaker
And even if we think they're ridiculous, um we have to approach them with some sense of respect in order to understand other people.
Human Potential and Technological Extensions
03:58:42
Speaker
And it's terrifying. It's sad, right?
03:58:45
Speaker
And there was there was a moment in the ah Pod Save America interview with Ari Aster that I found really interesting, where um it's a personal opinion that I also hold, where humans today are already cyborgs.
03:59:01
Speaker
You know, cell phones are an extension of the self. And Ari Aster sees Eddington as like cyborgs in transition, as people who are like, not fully in control of what their body's full ah abilities are.
03:59:20
Speaker
And if there were ever an Eddington sequel, I imagine it would be about fully realizing what the full potential of one person is Once the internet is included in the equation.
03:59:31
Speaker
Yeah, that's all in there. This thought just came to me while you were saying that. America is the homeless guy we start on. He's the first image we see. And not just in terms of like the class discrepancy of a discarded person. Because like he gets murdered and it doesn't matter. Like no one's even like looking him. Yeah, the way through the Yeah.
03:59:50
Speaker
Yeah, and that's like the turning point for the of like, oh, we're off to nightmare land now with with this. But but the but also the fact that he's he's babbling things
America's Self-Delusion and Capitalism Critique
04:00:00
Speaker
to himself and you could kind of catch phrases and things that he's saying, but he's in his own reality of the people who are suffering through some kind of.
04:00:08
Speaker
ah you know, mental health crisis. And especially if they're on the streets, they they can't have, don't have access to that, the help they need. Like um America is is, is, is suffering from its own self delusions, walking around babbling to itself, drooling and, and needs help. ah You know, from a,
04:00:29
Speaker
probably won't get like, like, like the guy does not get help. So, you know, ah but that's, yeah, we're, we're all that guy.
04:00:40
Speaker
Well, not a time you speaking Mandarin, buddy. i said like looper on in the background the other day of the part where Jeff Dan was like, I'm from the future.
04:00:50
Speaker
Go to China. the Hell yeah, brother. Yeah. um Do you guys have any final thoughts before we wrap up this? we're We're going for the award for longest podcast episode and we're going to win. i don' Awesome. Yes. hey I actually do have something to say.
04:01:11
Speaker
He said my final thoughts. All right, so one thing I like about Eddington is like visually, it kind of points to how so much like the southwest of America, kind of like this weird artificial playground that almost doesn't feel like a regular the way of life because especially like Joaquin Phoenix's home, I really like the set design for his house because it kind of feels like ah terrarium or like an aquarium for a lizard. There's like something about it that's so dry and desolate
04:01:42
Speaker
And you're just watching, especially when he moves the camera through it and he cuts to like these really precise compositions. It just feels like all this life out in the desert feels unnatural. Like they weren't supposed to be there. And they're not. So, I mean, like even if the protesters are cringe, they are correctly re might continually hammering home that did it is stolen. by I mean, the whole country is stolen land, but like that area specifically too, that, you know, it there is an unnaturalness to all of this. And then, and that's its own delusion. yeah mean, you could zoom out further be like, capitalism is a self delusion that we're told is like,
04:02:23
Speaker
There's no other way. Look at what you want to be. You want to be fucking communist. Look how that's worked out. but But it's presented like that. That's the only way. And so it's like capitalism hasn't even been around that long. Actually, like this is like the only thing we've known forever. And. And it's like, no, it's, this is an iteration of, i mean, basically now we're just circling back to like, besides full fascism, we just have like tech based feudalism, but like, you know, it's just like, and just, just, it's which this movie is also about. And yeah,
04:02:54
Speaker
and ah you know four hours going Oh, the delusion of of America. That that that it is i mean, the fact that there are people who could with a straight face be like, America's the greatest nation on Earth. There are people who will still say that in this day and age. And it's like, there is...
04:03:13
Speaker
and actual measurable metrics about like our place in like you could be like healthcare care education and and then people be really weirded out or something you bring up of the thing like like yeah cuba's like ahead of us and like education so i'm gonna be like ah well this is a communist oh like because they can all be it's called cancer vaccine yeah i remember when obama got in trouble for saying the like giving their health care credit i was like ah but He's
Prominent Film Figures and Institutional Critique
04:03:40
Speaker
finally doing something. He's doing something based. him cook.
04:03:42
Speaker
so but Come on. Let him fund Israel even less.
04:03:51
Speaker
Yeah, William Bellow, he's having a fantastic like spike in films recently. He's an actor with so much presence. Sorry, which actor? ah William Bellow. He's the cop at the Pueblo, and he was in Killers of the Flower Moon, and one of the best sequences in that movie.
04:04:09
Speaker
ah was like Henry Rome. Oh, him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, That's so, like, I mean, the whole movie is a attract like ah series of tragedies, but the Henry Rome stuff is like, oh.
04:04:22
Speaker
Yeah. It's kind of like like, you mentioned this in the beginning about, like, Gabriel Byrne's perspective in Hereditary. That's kind of like his part in this movie. Yeah, you're right. like He is a from the fantasy of like, because like another thing conservatives also bristle against what you say like ACAB is that they're like, well, my such and such is a cop. I met this one cop that was nice. And it's like, you're not understanding that like it's an it ah institutional critique and that these people are participating in this evil.
04:04:51
Speaker
institutional rot. So that's why they're bastards. It's not saying that like that an individual could, but like the, the, uh, the native cop, ah the playable cop is is, from what we've seen quote, quote, good cop, you know, like from, from the realms of like what he is just trying to do what he can. I mean, yeah. Also ACAP still applies to him, but I'm saying from what we've,
04:05:12
Speaker
From from from the the the perspective of this narrative, I mean, i think he's probably yeah he's probably done bad stuff. He's a cop. But hope I'm saying, like the you from what we see, he's the he's working the case.
04:05:25
Speaker
He's not just going to be like accepting the narrative when they're selling Mike down the river. He's like, well, hold on a minute. that that There's yeah this is this is a lot going on with like every character, even the ones that don't have as much screen time. And I think that's that's ah also a mark of ah a good movie. Yeah.
04:05:42
Speaker
then the native character has to be called attention there where it's like they're the only person who's really solving anything they're the only person who's really understanding how it all fits together right they're the only true peacekeeper in all of this Right. he He is doing what Joaquin Phoenix or any of the other deputies should be. That's the idea of like, obviously, why of institutional things should be reformed. the are Not reformed. I'm going to fucking abolish. ah Anyway, but but but that in terms of like, as the system exists now, he is doing what he can.
04:06:17
Speaker
And that is what like, if Joe was actually just trying to help his community, that's what he should be doing. Yeah. And yeah, it's, it's, it's just, it's funny to have that, uh, that disparity between characters.
04:06:33
Speaker
Um, yeah, I'm running out of, I'm running out of steam. I think we've, we've broken the record. um Deidre O'Connell, I couldn't remember the mother-in-law's name. She's great. She may be, I have to relook who was her, against her in the category for supporting actress in the miniseries for Penguin. She probably, she excellent in Penguin.
04:06:54
Speaker
um Penguin was surprisingly good. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it wasn't like they were trying to, initially were like, it's like Sopranos from the Batman universe. It's not Sopranos, but like Yeah, well, not the news.
04:07:07
Speaker
nothing nothing Sopranos but but in terms of like it fully leans into the stuff that I like of the Batman as like a pulp crime movie of like yeah now we're just going to show just the criminal side of that and but it's it's it's really good. and and felt very Bronze Age Batman which is my new favorite era of Batman. It's just like this is an era you can sink into.
04:07:31
Speaker
It's pulp, it's gothic, it's sci-fi, it's everything at once. Yeah, that's why. I mean, I think Matt Reeves has a specific idea of that universe, but I always disagreed with people who were like, yeah, this movie's too ground. The Batman's too grounded to have room for like, ah like supernatural elements. I'm like, is it ground? It's like gritty. And
Playful Speculations in Film
04:07:54
Speaker
it's, you know, like, you know, it's got that Fincher vibe aesthetic that it's aping, but but it's it's pulpy, you know, like pulpy, you have, there's room for magic and like you could have, you could have the mo monster version of clay face, even though I think there's a, the other origins for clay face are interesting and there's things you could do for the, for that. Yeah. and they They should do the Preston Payne clay face, like third one from the seventies.
04:08:19
Speaker
That guy is just full body horror. Is he the one who like takes like a serum or something? Yeah, he takes the serum and like melts his face and then he just touched melts other people. But if he doesn't touch other people, he has pain. He's like very, he's like very psychosexual. His face is like a person being suffocated with like saran wrap.
04:08:41
Speaker
That should be the Clayface movie and it should be David Cronenberg. Yeah, it is. He wasn't a coward. Yeah. David Cronenberg would be... He's artsy-fartsy stuff. make Make a fucking Batman movie.
04:08:56
Speaker
Come on. idiot. Real artists. Yeah, Cronenberg's Batman with Viggo Mortensen Batman. Come on. Okay, hold on. and That sounds good. Cronenberg and Wes Anderson, they're fun directors to do fan casting with.
04:09:12
Speaker
I know that's like a lame thing to do, but because they have such an like iconic troop of actors. oh yeah Absolutely. and Like we who would Vincent Cassell be, for instance, in the Cronenberg Batman?
04:09:23
Speaker
Whoever speaks the lot the least. See, i could come up with clever answers wasn't tired. I'm sorry. I apologize. ah The only reason I say that is because Castell said that the Shrouds is like one of the only projects that he's had like the most amount of lines in, which i like I felt so bad for him. I was like, you don't even have that many lines in this movie.
04:09:44
Speaker
Yeah, he's got a great mug though. looks exactly like David Cronenberg in it. the he's the perfect like stand-in you know some directors need those stand-ins and he's got what if he was like a Kevin Smith stand-in what if he had this is how tired i am I can't remember Batman villains the guy who has the the but the the the puppet and uh the um mean it's really close The ventriloquist. Vince Cazelle's a ventriloquist. And then the the voice of Scarface will just be, i don't know, do some stunt casting. Seth Rogen.
04:10:18
Speaker
Holy shit, man. Vincent Cassell's best moment as an actor, him like dodging the lasers in Ocean's 12. there you go. I watched that scene all more more than I've seen that the full movie. of I like Ocean's 12, to be clear, but that scene is on, it it's like its own film.
04:10:39
Speaker
I've seen Star Wars. Star Wars also has a good year in this year. He should put out a third. he's He's two for two. He should do David Koepp ruined his streak because David Koepp wrote both of the Soderberghs, but then also wrote Jurassic World Rebirth. That fucked up his streak, but Soderbergh's still good. So Odeberg should have done Jurassic World Rebirth and then he could could have could have kept the streak going. I'm going to say something that maybe will retract my film cred card, but I'm going to do it anyways because, you know, we're on a podcast and this is fun.
04:11:14
Speaker
ah But I was at like the TIFF premiere of ah Presence and I fell asleep halfway through. it And honestly, it kind of helps the experience. Yeah.
04:11:25
Speaker
yeah I'm pro falling asleep in the theater. That's what the chairs are designed for. Right? But i this movie was specifically good for it because like I woke up and I was like, oh my shit, I'm in a nightmare. Here's the thing. If you're not allowed to sleep in a movie theater, you can't live Sherlock Jr. think falling your asleep during presents. Yeah, you're're you're making the best points to further in we get. So maybe we should keep going another couple of hours.
04:11:50
Speaker
I actually have 16% left. I don't want to keep anyone. No, no. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, i'm I'm having a good time. That's why I keep going. And and some sicko is going to enjoy this. So that's why it's like, it's, that makes it good content. um But do you guys have any plugs you want to do for your social medias or OnlyFans? I'm at DecoyRobot on Twitter, also called X if you're a moron. and
04:12:22
Speaker
And also called that on Blue Sky, which is like Twitter. But if you're kind of a dork. If you're a pussy. yeah I mean, I'm a dork here, so and it's pot kind of called black. but anyway, I'm... There's a dork hierarchy. I'm a nerd, but there's people that I should be allowed to shove into lockers. Like people who... Those are geeks.
04:12:44
Speaker
That's why they eat the chicken heads.
04:12:48
Speaker
No, that's what geek comes from. is that I saw Nightmare Alley with Bradley Cooper. That movie should have taught me one thing. It's what a geek was. That's an amazing pull. That's an amazing way i never to get the geek.
04:13:00
Speaker
Have you seen the original with Tyrone Bond? I haven't seen it yet. they're they're They're incredible. I prefer the ending of the Bradley Cooper movie, even if I think Tyrone Power ah does the the character better. But the bread I think that was like the book ending is closer to the... like the There's kind of like an added little... It's still a tragic ending for the character in the original, but they kind of add that like his girlfriend comes back and finds him as the geek. So it's almost like, oh, will she save... ah like there's There's like a twinge of like maybe hope, whereas him he and the...
04:13:34
Speaker
Del Toro version is for him just accepting of like, yeah, I fucking deserve this. Yeah, it's like... Mister, I was born for this. Yeah, it's like Jim Thompson's The Getaway because there's like a great movie of it with Steve McQueen by Sam Peckinpah, but like the novel ending like so dark. When they go to hell.
04:13:53
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's one of the great endings. There should be, feel like there should be a movie of the ending. and like um yeah because like that That is like its own, it's like a new setting. There's a whole new thing. yeah but it's It's crazy, yeah.
04:14:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's like kind of predicted like the hyper-capitalism of the tech world today because you need an excessive amount of money for everything, but you can't get more money. you go into debt, and you can't leave.
04:14:21
Speaker
like it really great yeah It's like an extortion racket that all these criminals fall into, but it's like that. Yeah. Now everyone in in society is it is under the and in extortion. Like if you want to live today, you need so much money. You need like three jobs to like afford a place. And also they won't give you a single job now because application system is ruined by ai Right.
04:14:45
Speaker
So. or you Solid gold has your carpet. They are bringing jobs, so I'm i'm for that. I think i think it's... AI? Wait, you know what's... I was in the reality of the movie. I was saying they're bringing jobs. I'm obviously not. Do you know what's a great bit of screenwriting? What's that?
04:15:05
Speaker
I think of all the thousands of Pokemon there are, Magikarp is objectively the funniest one to put into a movie like this. like Because it's like weak, it's useless.
04:15:17
Speaker
It does evolve into something cool. But like, is that like supposed to be like a hope of like tech could be used for good, but right now it's fucking useless. Like you could read it that way. Cause like things we have, it's like tech itself is neutral is a net. I mean, it,
04:15:34
Speaker
AI is bad because it's going to be used by the horrible people for all the wrong reasons and and for bad things. But it's like the technology on its own is fine.
04:15:45
Speaker
Yes. Do you guys know what solid gold magic art means in the AI world? Oh, it's like a specific... It's like the prompt that detonated the AI even when they tried to input it. I read that in a tweet.
04:15:59
Speaker
Yeah, I wasn't sure if you guys knew that or not. says you know More layers keep getting at it. Okay. This is going to be fucking masterclass. Yeah, it's stupid. I was an AI bot and I couldn't just generate a Magikarp that was just gold color, that's like the most basic MS paint kind of thing you could do.
04:16:16
Speaker
That's what i'm saying. I could do that on Canva in like a second. Like, why are... and And this is the thing that's the future? They're fucking idiots. Anyway, back to my point. Unrelated. But with Huntington, they are and specifically relating to like Solid Gold, Magikarp, and all that stuff.
04:16:34
Speaker
There are a lot of people online who, for whatever reason, do not see this film as particularly deep or insightful. And they don't see that like any of the things that...
04:16:45
Speaker
we have laid out as, you know, these insightful things as, ah you know, world things in the, a in the AI world, ah they don't see that as true or real. And I think that's really preposterous, at least in
Artistic Depth and Film Community Dynamics
04:16:58
Speaker
my eyes.
04:16:58
Speaker
Wait, hold on. I agree. Wait, you first, is that this is also a bugbear of mine, but you first. I was just gonna say, it's like not even, it's the final images of the film and it's like really hammering home in that, in that like epilogue of like, this is, this is what was going on no matter what and like you you're not stopping it like yeah I I I feel like it's in the movie so this isn't like a reach like we're not inventing things we're not or are we in a delusion did it really happen were there antifas it's Ari Aster even real prove it you can't
04:17:39
Speaker
I was going to say, there's like this arms race on Twitter and Letterboxd to like prove that the artist de jure isn't as intelligent as he thinks he is or that people think he they are.
04:17:51
Speaker
like People were also doing this laughter with The Beast by Bertrand Bonnello. They were going like, oh, this movie is great, but he's a complete bozo. Everything that's good, he's like a good filmmaker, but anything he says is dumb or accidental. it's just It's just kind of unnecessary.
04:18:09
Speaker
and it's insulting. Yeah, it's insulting. It's people kind of diminishing. It's like creating an arms race of legitimacy on like who matters because it's like we're film people.
04:18:21
Speaker
ah lot of the people in our circles are film people. It's what we talk about the most. But if like some film person is annoying or someone just doesn't like the movie, they'll go, well, it's actually literature. That's the real intelligence. And movies are just like exciting stuff for dumb people.
04:18:34
Speaker
And then in literature, they do it with the authors that people like. And They go to like philosophy and it's just like a repeating cycle. I like getting more and more esoteric, even though all that stuff is cool and esotericness is cool.
04:18:47
Speaker
But it's just the subtext of it all is always just, I am the primary discerning figure here and I'm smarter than everyone else. And it's just kind of, hotughty They're kind of Joe crosses in a way that they want to inflate their own self-importance at at the expense of ah anyone else. So yeah in a way, gatekeeping is fascist. So cut it out.
04:19:10
Speaker
Yeah. You gotta tear down the wall. Take it to its logical conclusion. Everyone who disagrees with me as a fascist, which is true. That is true.
04:19:22
Speaker
and her If you are listening to this podcast and you're thinking to yourself, oh my God, it's too long. My God, why are they talking about this fascist?
04:19:33
Speaker
yeah Do some self-reflection. Yeah, this is, we're going South Park mode. We're bigger, we're longer, and we're uncut. ah Yeah, I'm circumcised, so. Yeah, I am too. Also circumcised.
04:19:47
Speaker
Like that gem, stopped by Darius Kanji. The cinematographer of Eddington. wait, it's the same cinematographer? Yeah, he's having a role. Keeping that in, by the way, that's not like, I mean, it's not like it's a secret. You gotta keep it in and double that. This is like a moho doing a Siamese twin.
04:20:06
Speaker
ah i feel like everybody who follows us knew we were circumcised. They knew. I think i've made I've made too many threads about the topic for someone not to pick up on it when I went through which Batman were a cut or uncut. And I think actors, like, of with the the big characters, like, which ones. yeah Right.
04:20:24
Speaker
It reminds me of, like, a classic, a real-life editing moment was, like, the Silent Hill wiki where, like, one moderator went insane attention about circumcision and how the Silent Hill games were, like, coding messages about circumcision.
04:20:42
Speaker
but But here's the thing about invented realities. Can you prove that it's not? Good point. You know, there's a parallel universe where all the circumcisions are inverted.
04:20:55
Speaker
I always like revert back to like Kurt Vonnegut, right? When I hear these fucking loony conversations, right? Where it's like, Yeah, they're all real. You know, fuck you. That's the answer.
04:21:09
Speaker
Right. like Time. Time exists all in the same fucking buffet of life. Right. And this
Views on Time and Authorial Identity
04:21:18
Speaker
time. Exactly. Right.
04:21:20
Speaker
right Like you perceive time as this linear thing. I perceive this time as the circle. You know what i mean? ah But, you know, like it's ah life. Life finds a way no matter what. Right.
04:21:32
Speaker
And, you know, no matter how stupid or real ridiculous we see it as, it goes on the hors d'oeuvres platter. Life finds a way. That's some solid gold bloom.
04:21:44
Speaker
Some blooming onion. Blooming onion does sound good. how much? I'm hungry now. How much longer do we have to keep going before we get full? Like we're not saying we we become like the homeless guy that we it's like not even discernible what we're talking about.
04:21:59
Speaker
Well, you know, if we go to like 5 a.m., you know, then I'll be up for a full 24 hours. So I say if we push it till then. I'm there, you know? We gotta go for it. We should do a Satan Tango commentary. do it We do it one time for us to end, like a regular movie, and then we do back-to-back the movie playing backwards. Do you know the YouTube video essayist Robert... ero Rob... ah Sorry.
04:22:24
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's Rob Agger. yeah. He's like... You guys know that guy? Yeah, he's like the Weros Waldo of Kubrick.
04:22:33
Speaker
side was but Doug really like your answer he's a good filmmaker I like i like his movies yeah he's his Nosferatu is awesome I enjoyed that actually he's a hack There's a little hacks. as ah And i'm I'm big time mad that they made these movies.
04:22:56
Speaker
Five hours in, I've come to conclusion that it's slop. It's just, it's aster slop. I went to the movie. I was like, one for the new aster. You know what someone said to me yesterday? they said PTA slop.
04:23:08
Speaker
PTA slop. Have you ever heard such a thing? Man, those people who are dunking on the one battle after another trailer for how it looks, they're going to be eating so much crow.
04:23:20
Speaker
I wish I saved their tweets making fun of it because you just know four months later they're to post the same screenshots from the movie. force Four screens are like the cinema absolute cinema.
04:23:31
Speaker
Yeah, he is absolute cinema though. He's just a full force filmmaker. I need to actually get, here's where um my my illiteracy is about to reveal. revealing a lot at the end here because I've i've never read, i don't even know how to say his fucking name. Is it Thomas Pinchon or Pinchon? He's a writer guy. you don't need him you don't need to pronounce authors correctly for but cover have the For That's good. good that respect They should be in a at least audio medium if I'm supposed to like know how to say their name. So yeah, that's that's kind of on kind of on him. I do have Vineland from the library. And so after I finished that, I should I should probably read Inherent Vice. It's ah the movies, one of my favorite movies. So i probably should.
04:24:20
Speaker
Great movie, great book. Very different though. Well, not very different, but there are differences in plotting and not just like focus. Although it's a good it's a great adaptation. I'm sure it is. I was enjoying it from the perspective of like just since I know PTA was my gateway to Altman. You know, even though I was aware of him, I hadn't like delved into his stuff. So like movie that's. Keep going after I get a charger.
04:24:45
Speaker
So directly in conversation with a one specific Altman movie, I was like, oh well, I'll watch The Long Goodbye. And then when I watched The Long Goodbye, rewatched Inherent Vice it just like made both movies better. So was like, oh, OK, so this is this is how that works. I mean, that's an example of like, yeah, it's this clearly he was inspired by this film and liked it, but yeah, one, it's an adaptation of a book and he is exploring ideas. He wants to say, because it's like not, you know, in inherent by send the seventies.
04:25:15
Speaker
It's definitely a lot of applicable ideas and things in that to now. So I'm, I'm excited to see, especially politically like one battle after another. um excited for the fortnight club. Really? That's the main reason to see any movie.
04:25:30
Speaker
um I'm not Teyana Taylor in the fucking, you know, pregnant machine gun pose, you know, like I just want to have that in a Fortnite model. Is that possible?
04:25:42
Speaker
Can they just do all the PTA? Can I get Philip Seymour Hoffman from Punch Trunk Love? like i want them i want Lancaster God as a playable character. i feel like that that's a reasonable ask I want that one character actor who sadly had passed and had the awesome scene in Synecdoche, New York. The guy who calls out Lancaster Dodd. or Like, isn't this a cult? Like that guy who shows up for one scene and knocks it the party. That guy should be in Fortnite.
04:26:11
Speaker
and That was like the funniest moment. I just heard that guy from The Master should be in Fortnite. I was just like, perfect conversation. You know who should be in Fortnite?
04:26:22
Speaker
Charlie Kaufman. Just him. But also, their skin you know how they have skins for the same character, Nicolas Cage. You can be Nicolas Cage, Charlie Kaufman. You can just be the regular Charlie Kaufman.
04:26:35
Speaker
That's so funny. That's so funny. just what What is Charlie Kaufman?
Humor and Social Media Engagement
04:26:40
Speaker
What is like Nicolas Cage sch from Adaptation? That's so good. That's good. Nicolas Cage from Adaptation and his emotes. He just like starts masturbating. and This is like this a really great podcast. I do have to go now and i got to get a charger so that the audio can be saved and recorded without my computer shutting down halfway because I figured if that happened, it would not be good. No, no, no. Yeah. Can you can you keep this tab open? No, I'm not keeping open. I'm just like, I do have to go soon, but I can keep it open definitely long enough for that to happen. Okay. Yeah.
04:27:15
Speaker
I'll let it safe. Thank you for coming on. Thank thank you so much, guys. right now Already did your plug. It was nice to meet you. I got to finish my plug from 20 minutes ago.
04:27:26
Speaker
the epilogue to the plug. Yeah, we had, it's like progressive rock. We like started off with the lyrics, but then we went into some improvisit, I'm too tired to say improvisit.
04:27:37
Speaker
Improvisit. Improvisit. imp probably i wrong
04:27:48
Speaker
It's a hard one. Yeah, it's it's a lot. Anyway, so I'm at Decor Robot on Twitter, Blue Sky, and also YouTube. But right now on my YouTube, it's only just student films I made in college, which aren't good, but I'm proud of them because they're mine. But I am in the process of editing a fun little short that's like two minutes. It's a two-minute ditty.
04:28:09
Speaker
I'm going to upload it to that, post it to my Twitter for people to view. I've Did all the photography and editing myself. It was a one-man show. Speaking of the Coen Brothers, it also rips off something from one of their movies. It's obvious when you see it which one it is, but keep that in mind. It all goes back to the Coen Brothers and Eddington, much like how Huttstock or Proxy, the great symbol, was the circle of eternal recurrence.
04:28:35
Speaker
ah That was lot of things. now Anyway, until then, you can follow me on Twitter to see my goofy nonsense. And also, I followed everyone here back as well. Hell yeah.
04:28:46
Speaker
Tony, your plug has been squashed. Yeah. The long-standing beef from five hours ago. Speaking of squashing beef, I'm going to make some beefsteak, which does involve squashing beef.
04:28:59
Speaker
Sounds good. See you, Cyrus. You have a good night. Yeah, four hours and 30 minutes. Great cinema right now because the best movies are longer than three hours. Yes.
04:29:09
Speaker
we We just did ah a war and peace ah level podcast. Yeah, but Total Story i didn't have a podcast. So what did he know? Irishman, fuck you. What's another four-hour movie?
04:29:21
Speaker
ah he Yeah, fuck all of them. We're better. Yeah. Seven Samurai? Hack shit. Who needs them? Highest to lowest? More like highest and shortest.
04:29:35
Speaker
Yeah. hello I think Spike was going to call his remake that for a little bit. And then it was going to be, it was going to be about him because he's short. So, so, so what was that?
04:29:47
Speaker
So I'm on the phone with Spike. He is just letting me know that that was the case. You're right, Doug. He's, he's for a friend of the pod. I mean, I could call him a friend. he was there on a live broadcast when I saw Megalopolis. So he was basically, I was basically in a room with him, you know, that was, That's crazy.
04:30:02
Speaker
well yeah They were streaming it from New York. That's like where the real like panel or whatever was. And he had nothing to do with the film. He's just friends with Coppola and De Niro. And it was the most ram. It was incredible. Honestly, like that better the then megalopolis because it was like ah robert de niro kind of half asleep and then i know ah i think coppola is the one or maybe spike made a ah trump joke and then de niro shoots right up he's like imagine trump making a movie can you even imagine it trump can never make this he can't he can't organize a sock drawer
04:30:41
Speaker
okay and To do the, yeah, yeah. um Yeah. You can find me at poor old Rolo Tony, all one word. That is my Twitter username. You can also find me at the exact same username at blue sky, but I do not use blue sky because they shadow banned me when I joined it the very same day.
04:31:02
Speaker
So if you want to hear my opinions, ah whether they be right now or tomorrow or the day after, you can follow me at poor Rolo Poor old Rollo Tony.
04:31:13
Speaker
Hell yeah. We did it, guys. all right. Good night, you fucking psychos who listened to a five-hour episode. Woo! Hell yeah.