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183 - Annihilation (2018) w/ Noah East
77 Plays5 months ago
“...almost all of us self-destruct.”
It’s an unofficial ‘Coming Attractions’ theme month where we’re talking about movies kinda-sorta related to current or upcoming theatrical releases! To start things off, we’re talking about Alex Garland’s sophomore effort on the heels of his most recent film Civil War making the divisive rounds! And we’re joined by actor, musician, and self-proclaimed Garland acolyte Noah East to bring it home. We’re talking about the disastrous test screening that almost altered the film (and definitely altered its release), our Alex Garland introductions, and our entry points to this cast’s filmographies!
Tucker’s evidence for his case against Barrow & Salisbury: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCo-hA6MuDc
And the offending score excerpt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFWFi5euWwU
When he’s not off wandering into the Shimmer, you can find Noah East on the following social platforms:
- @boy_roarbison on Instagram
- @eastcommanoah on Letterboxd
And if you’re fans of us, watch us all self-destruct in real time on the social media network of your choice:
- @Disenfranchpod on Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram, Letterboxd, and YouTube.
- Email us your thoughts or requests to [email protected]
- Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify!
- Find Stephen at @ChewyWalrus on Bluesky, Instagram, and Letterboxd.
- Check out Stephen’s first novel on Amazon, now available in paperback or ebook: https://amzn.to/44idk8y
- Find Brett at @sus_warlock on Letterboxd.
- Find Tucker at @icenine09 on YouTube and Instagram and @tuck_mugs on Instagram.
- Join our Patreon for exclusive bonus content, including bi-weekly episodes of What Are We Watching? at https://patreon.com/Disenfranchpod
- Watch our big screen debut in Circle City Supernatural from our buddy J.P. Leck! You can either buy it on BluRay through his website, buy/rent it through Amazon Prime, or watch it free with ads on Tubi!
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Transcript
Introduction and Hosts Banter
00:00:20
Speaker
I'll sing one for you.
00:00:22
Speaker
What's that shimmering light off in the distance? It must be the disenfranchised podcast. We're that podcast all about those franchises of one, those films that fancy themselves full-fledged franchises before falling flat on their face after the first film. I'm your host, Steven Foxworthy, and joining me, as always, the man who spent more than his fair share of time in the shimmer, it's Brett Wright. Hey, Brett. Hello, Steven. How we doing, buddy?
00:00:49
Speaker
All right, man, how are you doing? All right. What the fuck? And that little voice you hear off in the distance, his eyes may be glowing, but his heart is pure. It's our co-host Tucker. Hey, Tucker. Hi, Steven. How's it going? Not bad. What are you? What the fucking? I saw I got my little pin here that has my my marijuana's in it. Mm hmm. And but it's new and I don't understand all the button presses and
00:01:19
Speaker
I don't know what I'm doing, really. I'm just trying to get it back to what it was before I fucked up. Honestly. Well, good luck. Um, this is some serious, like, like old man struggling with technology sort of thing. I don't know what the red light means in comparison to the blue light. Well, it's new and it's got difference. It's very different than any other that I've had. It's said to click it three times. I click it three times. I mean, am I clicking it too fast? Martha, get in here and help me. I figured it out.
00:01:50
Speaker
Right on. And there's the vapor to prove it.
Guest Introduction: Noah East and Movie Choice
00:01:54
Speaker
Also joining us, one of one of my very dear friends from back in the day, musician, actor, what other superlatives should I say here? Noah, you've done pretty much everything. Oh, that's kind of you.
00:02:09
Speaker
Well, Noah East joining us on the podcast today. Hey Noah, how's it going, man? Thank you so much for having me, you guys. Absolutely. It's been a long time coming, really just waiting on you to decide what movie you wanted to cover. My podcast ended a couple of years ago, and I haven't been on anybody's since then. And so I am glad to be back talking about movies on the internet.
00:02:32
Speaker
Hell yeah, we're thrilled to have you. And as mentioned, Noah, you picked today's movie. What movie did you pick for us? I picked Alex Garland's sophomore directorial effort, Annihilation. 2018's Annihilation, written for the screen and directed by Alex Garland and starring Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Lee, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, Tuva Novotny, Oscar Isaac,
Gina Rodriguez's Performance
00:03:01
Speaker
Benedict Wong and David Gyasi. What a cast. Gentlemen, what a picture. Holy shit. You guys, I immediately have to jump in because the gal that played the military gal, what's her name? Military gal. Yeah, the one military gal with the hair and she's the first one to go in the bear tears her well, the second one to go the bear tears her jaw off that guy. Gina Rodriguez. That's the gal from my sitcom. I watch Jane the Virgin.
00:03:30
Speaker
No, the other one. No, not dead yet. Not dead yet. Oh. And I could not. I was so impressed with her in this movie, not because she did like a phenomenal job or anything, but just that she pulled off this role because all I've seen her in are prissy sitcom roles. Yeah. So I was talking to my wife about this last night that I was like, is that is that the chick from from Jane the Virgin? She said, yeah. I was like, that's a comedy, right? I was like, well, this is the only time I mean, this is the only thing I've ever seen her in. But I
00:04:00
Speaker
I was under the impression that she was a comedic actress. And man, she gets a lot to chew off in this movie.
00:04:08
Speaker
She does. I was just I never really doubted her ability. I had just never seen her play any say anything outside of her normal thing that she does, you know. Right. Yeah. I mean, she has got a pretty vast array of credits, including Deepwater Horizon Awake. I mean, she's done quite a bit across and she she plays Barbara Gordon on Batman podcasts as well. So there's that.
Comedy vs Drama in Acting
00:04:35
Speaker
Um, but I mean, you know, it's the thing they say about comedic actors. If you want someone that can deliver, you know, dramatic dialogue real well, uh, hire a comedian because they understand timing innately. Yeah. So I was just reading, um, I got back into reading the biography of Jim Varney that I'm reading and, and he had said something to someone about how. Like if you do drama, you know, you can do it a whole bunch of different ways and it works.
00:05:05
Speaker
But if you don't nail a fucking joke, the joke does not work. No, it does not work. There's no there's no like two ways to do it. You have to do it the way that it works. Yeah, exactly.
00:05:16
Speaker
Absolutely. I mean, comedy is difficult and it takes a certain kind of person to be able to do that consistently well. And sometimes comedic voices can get muted, deadened or just lost, which is why, you know, you got all the old comedians saying, well, you can't say, you know, anything funny anymore. No, you just can't be offensive. And if the only way you know to be funny is being offensive, then you're not that funny. Yeah. That's why that's why comedians should do characters. That's speaking of the Jim Farney biography I was just reading.
00:05:45
Speaker
He was talking about that, too. He was like, if you want to be offensive, if you want to, you know, even do like satire of like offensive stances or opinions, just do it as a character. You don't do it as your character. You create another character to say those things so that you can be like, oh, yeah, that's just some silly character I do. You know, that's the Sacha Baron Cohen model. That's the junior and Tropic Thunder model.
00:06:10
Speaker
Absolutely. That's 100 percent it. That's the when I make fun of minorities at home when it's just me and my wife and I'm making I do and it's just to get a that's just to get a rise out of her so that you know I'll do a little like hillbilly character who's like who confuses all Southeast Asian people as Muslims. Oh god. You know that sort of thing.
00:06:33
Speaker
I think it helps sell the satire if you do it because she knows that I don't feel that way. But when I'm playing Teddy Jim Bob or whatever, you know, you know, throw a little accent on it.
00:06:48
Speaker
all of a sudden it's comedy gold. Right, there you go. And some people don't know how to do that. So yeah, man. You know, Rodriguez sure does. The way that she punches down in this. No, I'm kidding. She's fantastic.
00:07:05
Speaker
She is so funny in this movie. Take that, peons. I was impressed with her as well because I recognized her this time on this review. I don't think I really clocked her before when I had watched this movie. I've seen this a couple of times. This is I think my third or fourth rewatch. I don't remember.
00:07:23
Speaker
but I actually clocked her this time and was like,
Noah's Initial Viewing of 'Annihilation'
00:07:25
Speaker
oh, that's Gina Rodriguez. And I was brilliant. I mean, she's playing a character very unlike anything that I've ever seen her do before. And to watch her pull it off as well as she does, I mean, speaks just mountains for her ability, quite frankly.
00:07:39
Speaker
Yeah, I see I had a very dissimilar experience. The first time I saw this movie was in the theater. And I was among the most hungover I've ever been in my life. I could have sworn that it was Michelle Rodriguez. And then when I said that to my wife, she was like, No, you're just racist.
00:08:00
Speaker
I was gonna say, man, that's like two very different looking Latina ladies. They're very different. They are. Extremely like different vibes the whole nine. Different, like they're different body types and everything. Yeah. Doesn't look like Ana Lucia from Lost.
00:08:20
Speaker
Well, you got the last name right anyway. Yeah. Very common last name. So what is, so Noah, you selected this movie, you said you saw it in the theaters for the first time. What is your history with Alex Garland as a filmmaker? What is your history with this movie? Why did you pick this one for us to cover?
00:08:41
Speaker
Because I've read the book, so that helps. And I am a humongous Alex Garland fan. I consider him to be one of the most exciting science fiction directors of the last 25 years. He has not made a bad film, in my opinion. And I know that a lot of people think this is his best film.
00:09:10
Speaker
uh i you know i've i've not seen uh the michael bay's transformers this this i've seen so you know uh if i was gonna come on and talk about something it needed to be something like this and uh um i think you guys already did hot rod so i was like all right we're doing annihilation no we haven't we haven't come back i'll come back for that because we can talk absolutely that's in my top five comedies of this of this century also mine too that's pretty great but uh but
Discussion on Alex Garland's Work
00:09:40
Speaker
No, just movie. This movie just life's about to change. This movie fucking whips. It's just so good. It's so good for so many reasons that I'm sure we'll get into. But yeah, I kind of worship at the altar of Alex Garland. Right on. Have you? I'm a silly question, but have you seen Civil War yet? And if so, what do you think?
00:09:58
Speaker
I saw it opening night, I get why it's so divisive, but a lot of the issues that people had with it, I don't have those problems. I think it's far from perfect, but the quibbles that I had with it were mostly minor, and I think it's another very good film of his. It's my least favorite garland, but that's saying something still.
00:10:20
Speaker
I think that it was marketed in a deceptive way. A lot of people are saying that the trailers make it seem like a big.
00:10:29
Speaker
the the
00:10:51
Speaker
that they'll stick around and still enjoy it, and thus, word of mouth it, just because it's so interesting and deals with so many prescient issues. But I don't know that that's
Distribution Issues of 'Annihilation'
00:11:09
Speaker
happened. It's still very divisive. Yeah, I haven't seen it yet. It's on my list, like I want to. There was a time a couple weeks ago when I almost got out to see it, and I didn't.
00:11:19
Speaker
I'm assuming a lot of your audience probably will have seen it by the time they hear this. The one thing that I have an issue with some of the negative reviews of it is that it doesn't lean in one direction one way or the other politically.
00:11:38
Speaker
Great I shouldn't have people that that's the point I don't want it to politics are irrelevant. That's why they're so ambiguous It's just about the people on the ground and what's actually happening to them. It's the politics are It doesn't have to make sense. It doesn't have to mirror our our reality It's it's not about the politics
00:12:02
Speaker
Right. Then that's that's the number one complaint that I think I've heard. And at that point, I'm just like, if that's not what the movie is about, then the something is about you can't complain and make the movie about something it's not about. So and I feel that if that's what you were wanting out of this film, then then I don't think you were going to like it to begin with. I think people are just looking for validation because they see something like this and they're like, oh, well,
00:12:28
Speaker
They're definitely gonna be on my side. Yeah, we're gonna tell those libs what for? And oh, well, and even on the opposite side, all those maggot dip shits are gonna eat their words with this movie. I'm gonna be so validated, you know? Yeah, exactly. And I'm glad to hear that it's not on any side, that it's just a straight up movie because I prefer that. And it is very intentional, very intentional. Right on, I like that. I almost saw it, but I saw Boy Kills World instead.
00:12:57
Speaker
uh i i i encourage you to see it in the theater just because it is the the money that they put behind it is on display and it's uh it's a 24 is most expensive film to date and so far it's its biggest um opening weekend box office so it's gonna make its money back nice i've uh i've only seen one alex garland film in theaters so far and that was men
00:13:21
Speaker
Yeah, which I saw in a mostly empty theater. Same here. Yeah, I don't I don't think that one was for the masses, really. Well, it wasn't. But think about that, though. He doesn't make he doesn't he doesn't make art for for the. It's not populist cinema, the stuff this guy is making, you know, that even before he was directing, even the stuff that he was writing was was some heady stuff, some, you know, not navel gazing or anything, but it's it's pretty
00:13:50
Speaker
You know, it's it's not populist cinema. Let's just say that, you know. Yeah, for sure. And I think that that's why men was so
Adaptation and Casting Insights
00:13:58
Speaker
maligned as well. Yeah, he he tends to write things that are very divisive. I just bought Sunshine a few months ago on Blu-ray and I have not watched it yet, but it is on my list. Brett, what is your history with Annihilation, with Alex Garland? Like, what's what's your what's your what's what's the Brett sitch on this guy?
00:14:21
Speaker
uh well i saw annihilation when it came out enjoyed the movie so much i read the book yeah um i never got around to the sequels i do need to read the the other two books in the trilogy um other than that uh i mean he did 28 days later right yep so yeah so i've seen those i love those
00:14:46
Speaker
Other than that, you know, not much else. I believe he only wrote the first one, right, Steven? He did. He just wrote the first one. He wrote a lot with Danny Boyle. He wrote three Danny Boyle films fairly, or I guess he did the novel of The Beach. Yeah. And then 28 Days Later and then Sunshine in 2007. Yeah. And then he went on his own.
00:15:09
Speaker
Yeah, never let me go. He dread a few trips over this podcast dread. And then he started writing his own stuff. Did a few video games. DMC is he wrote the three Devil May Cry, Bloody Palace Mode and Virgil's Downfall. And then he started and also the definitive edition and then Ex Machina Ex Machina. Whoo.
00:15:38
Speaker
comes out in 2014, and then he's off to the races basically as writer director. Hold on back up. So so so we didn't write. That sounds like a game and two DLCs for Devil May Cry. Oh, OK. Wasn't that by me again? Devil May Cry, Bloody Palace mode and Virgil's downfall. Is it Devil May Cry or DMC? OK, Devil May Cry. It's DMC. I'm looking at it right now, Brett. It is DLC.
00:16:08
Speaker
because it is collected two years later in the definitive edition, all three of those come out in 2013, so I'm assuming those other two are DLC. Okay, so it is DMC, which is the remake of Devil May Cry. So, which I enjoyed, most fans hate it. Yeah, a lot of people hated it, but I never played it, but my pal that played it really liked it, so.
00:16:28
Speaker
Yeah, I enjoyed it quite a lot. So it's cool to see that he wrote on that. That's fantastic. So what really made me a garland acolyte is Ex Machina is one of my favorite films of this whole century. I think it's the for me, it's the gold standard of science fiction.
00:16:50
Speaker
at least terrestrial science fiction. I think it might be the best I've ever seen. The performances are phenomenal and that movie just floored me and I've seen it probably 20 times and I still feel the same way about it as I did before. The score is incredible. I mean, it's a perfect film.
00:17:09
Speaker
Annihilation is close to a perfect film. And then there's devs. Have any of you seen devs? I saw like the first episode, but I didn't watch more than that, I'm afraid. Do you remember the feeling you got when you saw the first season of True Detective and thought this is the best season of television I've ever seen?
00:17:27
Speaker
Uh, if by the first season of True Detective, you mean season three of Twin Peaks, then yes, absolutely. Okay. Okay. Well, Devs was like that for me. I saw Devs, when Devs was done, I was like, this is the best science, again, terrestrial science fiction series I've ever seen. It's just, it's remarkable stuff.
00:17:48
Speaker
I've heard really good things and I want to get back into it. Like I said, I think I've just watched the first episode, but I do want to get back into it for sure. So Devs and Ex Machina are the two like real reasons that I am such a huge, huge fan of his. So it's just one season. Is it an entire story or does it end on a cliffhanger? It's just a limited series. It's an entire story. Then I'll definitely watch that then.
00:18:10
Speaker
For sure. I'm looking at this cast and I am interested. So what's cool is Kaylee Spaney, who's in Civil War, and she almost got nominated for an Oscar for playing Priscilla in Sofia Coppola's Priscilla film this past year. Oh, right. Yeah. She plays a teenage boy in Devs and is fantastic in it. And that's the only thing I had ever seen her in until I heard she was playing Priscilla. And I was like, wait a second. But that's oh, that's a girl.
00:18:38
Speaker
So why not? Yeah, interesting. Terrific in it. Yeah. Oh, that's fantastic. Tucker, what about you? What is your history with this film with Alex Garland? Like lay it on me, man. Hi, it's me, Tucker. This is my history with this film and Alex Garland. Hi. Hi, Tucker. Hey, hey, hey. I really liked X Machina. I thought it was really fantastic. I only saw it once, but it blew me away.
00:19:06
Speaker
I had no idea that this film existed until I looked on the calendar on Friday and saw that it was the movie we were watching. Oh, so I started watching it. And then when it was over and it was like straight up directed by your boy, Alex Garland. And I was like, wait, is that the ex machina guy? And I was like on my phone and my phone was like, yeah, that's the guy. And I couldn't believe it because like I liked that movie so much, but
00:19:31
Speaker
I never really had a post sit with it. I just watched it and then went on to something else. A lot of movies, if I like it that much, I'll look it up on Wikipedia and watch a few YouTube videos about it after. But for some reason, I just never did that with Ex Machina, so Alex Garland wasn't someone that I was watching. But when I saw that he directed that,
00:19:56
Speaker
But I think that's really telling that you said that you weren't even aware of this movie until now. And you liked his film. This should be on my radar. Because I liked. You liked his Academy Award winning film that was right before it. And that leads really well into the issue with this film's release and why it tanked and why it's highly unlikely that
00:20:23
Speaker
Garland certainly won't, but it's highly unlikely Paramount or anyone else is ever going to make the sequels, which is why they never got made, which is why we're doing it
Behind-the-Scenes Conflicts
00:20:31
Speaker
on this show. Correct. And the release of this was a huge clusterfuck between Paramount and the powers that be over at Skydance. Correct. Because Skydance does is a major financier of a lot of Paramount stuff.
00:20:47
Speaker
and David Ellison is like a producer at Skydance. There was a test screening of this early on that bombed so spectacularly that he was worried that it was too intellectual, quote unquote, and too complicated and demanded that they make changes so that it would appeal to a more broader audience, right? And Scott Rudin at Paramount, we all know he's just the chillest guy in the world. Scott Rudin.
00:21:15
Speaker
Scott Rudin did one of something that I think is pretty uncharacteristic for somebody who has the reputation that he has. He sided with Garland and said, no, we're not changing a single thing. This film is the way that it's intended to be, and we're not changing anything. And that caused a huge fight between Skydance and Paramount, so much so that they split the difference. And Paramount handled all of the domestic
00:21:41
Speaker
a North American distribution for it. And then Skydance sold all the rest of international to Netflix. So they put it out in theaters in the UK for two weeks and then threw it on Netflix everywhere but here in the States. Before it had even come out in the States. Correct. So by the time it came out in the States, you know, people were just like, what is this thing? We don't really get it. And there wasn't enough word of mouth with a global distribution.
00:22:11
Speaker
that it kind of died on the vine and they yanked it out of theaters three weeks later and then it didn't hit streaming for two more years until Hulu, Netflix's main competitor, picked it up for streaming.
00:22:23
Speaker
So that really that really pumped the brakes on this thing gaining any momentum and a life after after it's it's box office release which now you know despite the fact that that that pret's never heard of it until today it has attained some sort of talker sorry i'm a fan sorry uh that uh tucker hasn't hadn't heard of it until now
00:22:50
Speaker
despite the fact that it's kind of gained a cult following in the subsequent years, you know, as one of those films, it's like, oh, man, if you haven't seen this, this is a lot of people like it better than the next machinists. This is his best film. It's one of the best science fiction films of the last decade, you know, and and I'm not going to argue with those people. I think it's excellent.
00:23:11
Speaker
But this could have had a much bigger footprint had it not been for that whole kerfuffle between Paramount and Skydance.
00:23:22
Speaker
I mean, the cast on this thing is incredible. Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Lee, Jennifer Jason Lee, like hot off an Oscar nomination for the hateful eight. Gina Rodriguez, we've mentioned the great Tessa Thompson, Oscar Isaac, the ubiquitous Benedict Wong. Like if this this movie has everything going for it, you know, hot screenwriter, hot director and for
00:23:50
Speaker
For Skydance to tank it so spectacularly like that, I mean really shooting their own profits in the foot by doing that is kind of insane to me. Well they got scared because just the year prior they had lost an arm and a couple of legs off of the terrible film Geostorm.
00:24:12
Speaker
And so that made that made Skydance very worried that this another science fiction film, people people had a bad test screening. We're going to lose our pants off of this. We got it. We got to dump this thing. And Paramount didn't want to dump it because Rudin believed in the film because he had he had he had produced Ex Machina as well.
00:24:35
Speaker
And so he was like, no, no, no, I trust this director. He's an auteur. I'm going to trust his vision and fight for it. Which I mean, I'm glad that he did. I don't know. I don't know what the the more populous version of this movie would be, but I know it probably wouldn't be half as good.
00:24:55
Speaker
Well, and it just shows that if Ellison couldn't tell the difference between this and Geostorm, maybe he needs to get out of the movie business. Maybe. I think that's part of the issue is the people running the movie business are businessmen who have really no knowledge of movies outside of those things make money, right? Except for the uber sane and well-adjusted Scott Rudin, yes.
00:25:21
Speaker
Oh, god, that man's insane. Um, I wonder how many telephones he threw during during that phone conversation. Oh, god, probably several. Getting on the horn with his secretary, I broke another phone, bring a new bring in a new one, get that asshole on the phone and bring me a new phone. Yeah, that man is is unhinged.
Book vs Film: 'Annihilation'
00:25:42
Speaker
So those of you who have read the book, which I think is just Brett and Noah,
00:25:47
Speaker
I just read it. I just read it recently just so that I could talk about it on here. Oh, right. I read it back when the movie came out. So my memory is going to be a little fuzzy. It's a short book. It's a real breeze. I mean, well, it's not a breeze. It's some real heady stuff, but it's it's not long. Let's say that.
00:26:03
Speaker
Fair enough. I think that's the headiness of it is probably the reason I haven't picked it up up to this point. My understanding is that when Garland went about to adapting this novel, he just said, I'm not even going to reread it. Nope. I'll just go based on what I remember of it. Yeah, so that it would retain that dreamlike feeling that the book has, which I think translates really well to the screen, honestly.
00:26:30
Speaker
Brett, would you agree with that assessment? I would, yeah. I mean, this might be a hot take, but I like the movie better than the book. Ooh, I agree. But I know we are both in the minority there, Ben. Oh, OK. All right. Well, yeah, that's why I was a little hesitant to say that. But it's good to know I have. I'm not the only one. There are a dozen of them. I agree. I think there's something special about this that it's like it's loosely based. He takes the characters.
00:26:58
Speaker
and actually gives them names. We're in the book, they don't have names. Oh, right. And he just even Vandermeer said, I love what he did. It's beautiful. He didn't even consult with Vandermeer other than sending him his script and being like, is this OK? You know, yeah. Which I mean, if you write a book like that, which has a very dreamlike quality and again, I'm going based solely off of descriptions I read of it.
00:27:24
Speaker
I mean, adaptation, it's something we talk about on and off here on this podcast, is kind of an art form to be able to take something that someone else has created and make it work for a different medium entirely. And changes are necessary in that process. And it seems like Garland made the right changes while still making the heart and the thematic core of the book resonate throughout the adaptation.
00:27:50
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's not like a real firm adaptation. You're not adapting someone's memoirs. You really got to get it exact. Otherwise, you're doing it a disservice. With a piece like this, I mean, it's kind of a really interesting approach to be like, I want it to feel like a fever dream. So I'm going to read this once and then not go back over it. This is it, baby.
00:28:11
Speaker
Right on. Yeah, I dig that I dig and I'm sure there's a lot of like differences between the two. But again, that's the ending being the biggest one. Yeah, that is the biggest divergence. Yes. But I suppose we'll get into that here later. But yeah, but even even Vandermeer said, you know, or in garland to about how afterward
00:28:33
Speaker
after he was already done and he had submitted it to Vanameer, Vanameer was like, it's kinda crazy how some of the things that you didn't even know I was gonna end up going there, you kind of, for more or less, arrived there at your own as well, you know? There are some themes here in the film version that kind of parallel some of the choices that Vanameer makes in the subsequent two books.
00:28:59
Speaker
because they weren't even out yet when he finished writing this script, so. No, he wrote this script before the first book had even been published. They bought it off the spec script. That's what I read. I was right. They knew it was the beginning of a trilogy and they're like, oh, we're jumping on this early because Rudin got bought the rights to it with the intention of making all three. Maybe not having Garland make all three. Maybe if it if it had done as well as as Ex Machina, he might have, but
00:29:27
Speaker
But the intention was to do all three. Everything I read says that Garland was very disinterested in doing anything but this first movie. Yes, he just wanted to do this. I'll let anyone else who wants to come in and take over and do any of the rest of them that they want, but I have no interest in that. I have no interest in sequels. I wanted to make this movie, and then I'm going to go make a weird movie about men.
00:29:50
Speaker
well he got to do all the fun stuff you know and it's like i'll let uh if somebody wants to do the other two books which is a hell of a lot more just uh talking in rooms then you go right ahead boy howdy we love that i think there's a road trip aspect to the second one i think as well i've not i've not read the second or third one i just read the first one
00:30:10
Speaker
The focus is more on the Southern Reach, the company that is behind everything. It's called the Southern Reach trilogy. I think they only get mentioned like name dropped a few times in this movie.
00:30:23
Speaker
Yeah. And another thing was, you know, there was a little bit of backlash, but I think it was because people didn't really know the timing of everything that Natalie Portman's character in the trilogy is part Asian. But of course that wasn't, that isn't discussed until the second book.
00:30:46
Speaker
And Garland was going off of the first book anyway. Right. And Jennifer Jason Lee, I think, was like part Native American indigenous. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, yeah, I mean, but again, yeah, given the timeline and he said he really just is like, I really just made my choices based on who I saw and who I talked to and who had worked with before. So, yeah, he had he had an A-list star attached and then another A-list star to play her husband that was
00:31:14
Speaker
A-list partly because he made a movie with him already. Yeah. Yeah. A really fucking good movie at that. So right. Like in that, I like that. I like the casting. I think everyone is very well cast. But again, I don't have the context from the novels to really know one way or the other. So. But yeah.
00:31:38
Speaker
Um, anything else we need to say about the development before we hop into the movie proper? Well, I did take some notes. Let me make sure I had, uh, so yeah. Um, oh, one of the reasons that, that, that Scott Rudin won on this is he had final cut.
Film Integrity and Scott Rudin's Role
00:31:54
Speaker
Right. So that's why Ellison at Skydance, he couldn't, he couldn't do anything. So.
00:31:59
Speaker
No, Final Cut is the just the last word in filmmaking. It's what every director wants. And so few directors are ever given anymore. Yeah, 32 million domestic. You add another 10 from China and you get 43 million worldwide. Oh, we'll get we'll get into that. We'll we'll get into all that later. OK, gotcha. For sure. But yeah, no, I mean, it does not even make its production budget back. So nope, we're not getting any sequels to this one.
00:32:27
Speaker
Let's get into the movie itself. Now, this is the part where we we're going to start with the plot in 60 seconds. That's the part where we recount the plot of the film we've just watched in 60 seconds or less. Normally, we would do that at the behest of the d6 of destiny or the coin of justice, or when the coin is retired, the was a Canadian quarter of indifference. Is that what we call that? That's the one. Okay.
00:32:57
Speaker
But since we have a guest who was amenable to do so, Noah has agreed to recount the plot of Annihilation in 60 seconds or less. Now, Noah, I need to ask you, are you doing the spoiler version or the spoiler-free version? Well, you guys, you said that spoilers are okay here.
00:33:14
Speaker
We go full spoilers. We don't even put spoiler warnings at the top of episodes. We're just like, look. You're interested to watch the film before you listen to like when you see the title, when Thursday hits, you see what we're covering, you watch it and then you listen to the podcast. Well, and I feel like I kind of mentioned this earlier. Your audience probably has, for the most part, has probably seen this already. Here's open. Yeah.
00:33:41
Speaker
So I have got 60 seconds on the clock, Noah. I will give you the 30 and 10 second warnings, and your time will start whenever you do. One of my favorite shows does the same
Plot Overview and Complexity
00:33:52
Speaker
thing. And so I've fantasized about having to do this, but never thought I'd be put in the position. So I'm going to give him my best shot.
00:34:05
Speaker
I'm thrilled to give you this opportunity. Again, I'm ready when you are, sir. I should have practiced earlier just with my cell phone. All right, you just shoot me off like a starting pistol.
00:34:18
Speaker
pew pew. Okay, so Natalie Portman plays Lena, who is a biologist, who used to be a soldier. And she comes home one day, she's gonna paint her bedroom, her husband's clearly been missing
00:34:39
Speaker
And all of a sudden he shows back up, but he's not quite himself. And so we cut to her joining an expedition to the shimmer. 30 seconds. We find out that that's where her husband's been. And so her and a group of other women that are all have different vocations that may or may not be useful on this expedition.
00:35:02
Speaker
so that they all go into the shimmer along with a psychologist who's like an adventurous she's she played by uh jjl and and and and and and and so they you know they all get they all get clipped off one by one by different things and then they end up at the lighthouse at the end and you know what i'm just gonna keep a spoiler free
00:35:20
Speaker
uh that was wow that time it is that is intense that was intense you sure that was 60 seconds that was 60 seconds i feel like he gave you an extra 30 seconds i feel like that was a long 60 seconds dude for a movie that doesn't that doesn't not a whole lot even happens that was difficult for me to get through
00:35:41
Speaker
That's okay. Look, I the first time we ever had anyone else do the plot in 60 besides just Brett and I, it was our friend Joseph. Hi, Joseph. Love that guy. He did he did space truckers. And he's like going really deep and he's 10 minutes into the film by the time he gets to the 30 second mark.
00:36:02
Speaker
And we were just like, hmm. Yeah, it's kind of something you learn the first few times you do it. For some reason, our brain wants to like go deep on the first half hour of the movie. And you realize, what am I doing? Right. Exposition, exposition, exposition.
00:36:21
Speaker
Steven, can you give people a much more succinct synopsis than what I just did? We never do that. No, plot in 60 and then we're done. We don't do any more than that. What are you doing, Steve? That's all the plot we do, man. We're about to recount it. Don't do that. We don't do that. They got to watch it, man. That's how hard I think. OK, then. You got to watch it anyway. The plot in 60 is that's why it's so fun. I feel like 30 seconds of my 60 seconds were unintelligible.
00:36:47
Speaker
That's normal. That's normal. I've done plenty of them. The entire 60 seconds is unintelligible. My favorite is still Speed Racer. That will always be my favorite plot in 60, just in terms of sheer unintelligibility.
00:37:03
Speaker
There's a lot of stuff that happens in that. So you'd have to like speed race through that 60 seconds. Yeah. And I did it. Normally I would pull up the Wikipedia page to sort of remind myself of like the plot points. I didn't do that at that time. Nope. And it was just, it was a fever dream. That entire 60 seconds was a fever dream. Yeah. So yeah. Don't listen to our speed racer episode. Please, please do.
00:37:29
Speaker
What that one got, it remains one of my favorites for a good reason. I was going to say, hey, Tucker, why don't you find that and just patch a little bit of it in right here so that our listeners can listen to it. And I remember that I'm Tucker and I would have to do that. So it's not just go back and listen to it. I'm not going to have enough when I say the wrong name, but you almost said the wrong name for yourself. Yeah, well, it happens. I am Brett, so.
00:38:07
Speaker
I mean, really, when you get right down to it, aren't we all Brett at the end of the day? We're all a little bit Brett. Sometimes I feel a little Brett. I feel a little Brett earlier today. I don't even know what that means. And boy, do we love it when there's a little bit of Brett in all of us. Yeah, we love it. Guys, you're gonna make me spread full Brett.
00:38:17
Speaker
My name is Brett. Welcome to my world.
00:38:33
Speaker
Good night, everybody. Get the silent back a little bit. Oof, it's getting spicy. So Natalie Portman, star of this movie. What's everybody's entry point for Natalie Portman? Is it is it episode one or is there an earlier entry point for some of this for me? You don't visit the way after the conversation we just had for Steven. What's our entry point? Get your mind out of the gutter, is all I have to say. The thing is, like, you helped to get our minds in the gutter. You participated in that.
00:39:02
Speaker
And then you're going to phrase it like right after. Come on, man. I don't know. They knew. I just got what I just got it. He said entry point. Yeah, it takes me a minute. It takes me a minute. Well, I didn't get it right away either. Tucker, you're the only one with your mind in the gut. Answer your question, Steven. Leon, the professional.
00:39:25
Speaker
OK. Ditto. Future episode of this podcast, Leon the professional, despite despite Tucker's best wishes. I'm sick that week. Hey, Noah, you can guest on that. I'm sick that week. I think that movie was very, very good. I didn't know that it was supposed to have a sequel. Mm hmm. Yeah, see, and that's why you should guess. So I don't have to come. Count me and I've been dying to watch it again. So for its connection to Resident Evil. That's that's why I would like it. There's a strong connection to Resident Evil. Wait, it does how? What? What?
00:39:55
Speaker
Well, Leon, very clearly is the main connection, the name Leon, and then like the special pistol that Leon gets that you can get in the second in both in all of the games, really, honestly, is called the Matilda. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. The more you know, the creator of Resident Evil is a big fan of those movies or that movie. I did not know that. Yeah. So he put references. It is a good movie, but I do not like it.
00:40:25
Speaker
I know. So so anyway, annihilation. Straight up, I know. So Natalie Portman. Yeah, great. So she wins her Oscar in 2011 for the 2010 film Black Swan and kind of goes on a weird run after that, like much more populist fair after that. No strings attached. Your Highness, Thor. I love that Steven thinks Your Highness is popular fair.
00:40:52
Speaker
Well, it's it's populist, but it was made. It was made for the masses. It just never caught on. You guys, every time that she was getting interviewed in Annihilation and she was sitting in that chair, I just wanted her to be like Chris Parnell across from her.
00:41:08
Speaker
And she'd do Natalie's rap from the SNL digital short. Maybe. Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. So we member. She was in with the chair. Every time I saw her like that, I was like, oh, can we just somebody do me like an edit of that?
00:41:23
Speaker
with this spliced in there as well. That would be rad as hell. She does Thor the Dark World, Night of Cups, Terence Malek films, and then she starts tipping into more Oscar Beatty stuff again. Something called The Hay Day of Insensitive Bastards, which I have never heard of before. I like that title. It's a great title. A Tale of Love and Darkness, Jane Got a Gun, Jackie Planetarium,
00:41:53
Speaker
So Jackie got her another nomination. It did. And then she does song to song, which got some buzz, but I don't think got any acting nominations at least. That was another Malick. Yeah, that's why. And then Annihilation, her next film is Annihilation. She does that and Vox Lux in the same year. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
00:42:14
Speaker
So I mean, she's she's not hurting for a hit, I guess not really hurting for a hit at this point. But it's been a while since she's had one. I think she's been able to, you know, do whatever she wants for a while. Yeah.
00:42:31
Speaker
because I think even the smaller projects, kind of off the map projects, sometimes she sort of brings, just her being in them brings them to the forefront. Absolutely. And I think that was part of the goal here with this too. I mean, you look at the one sheet for it and it is, she is the only name above the title.
00:42:52
Speaker
Yeah, it's Natalie Portman. And then like, you know, she's the main character on the poster and then annihilation beneath it. So like, I mean, yeah, who else do you even need, though? Like she's a bona fide movie star. That's I mean, Black Swan had the same marketing, like just Natalie Portman, Black Swan, her face. That's it. That's all you need. And she was already a star at that point. Yeah, exactly. She'd already been nominated for closer at that point. Right. Right. So, yeah, I mean, that I mean, she is
00:43:21
Speaker
very easily someone who I would go to see a movie because she's in it. I think a lot of people are also that way. I think the marketing playing to her strength, I think, or playing to her is really smart. Maybe the smartest thing they did with the marketing on this one. But by the same token, like if you're not selling the premise, you can't sell everything on a star these days, particularly these days when star power is kind of not really something anyone considers anymore, really.
00:43:50
Speaker
Yeah, the star no longer is the box office draw for the most part anymore. But at this time, like, had you ever seen her had audiences ever seen her in this mode before with an AK 47, you know, like, like playing this kind of character before, like V for Vendetta is the closest thing to that. And she's not the one spurring on the action in that film. Yeah. I mean, she's packing heatingly on the professional, but, you know,
00:44:20
Speaker
That's also different. It's way, way different, I think. So I think that was part of the draw, also, is not only is it Natalie Portman, A-list star, ingenue, but also, you know, it's Natalie Portman like you've never seen her before. Think about like when Emily Blunt did Sicario. Same thing. It's like this is Emily Blunt like you've never seen her before. That's kind of what this was, too. It's like she's wearing fatigues and wearing and carrying
00:44:49
Speaker
Kalashnikov or whatever. Right. Big ass gun. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know anything about guns. Yeah. Same. Neither do I. So I feel like that was, at least to some degree, a selling point here. This is that actress that you love and you know her for being gorgeous. Here's her throwing you a curveball with a science fiction shoot them up, which is kind of what this was marketed as as well. There's more action in this.
00:45:20
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you know, some some animals do get get wasted with them guns. But yeah, yeah, I got to say that I I'm glad that I never saw a trailer for this. I'm glad I never knew it existed because I it was so nice to go in blind because there's this movie, this switches gears so many times and just becomes something completely different and.
00:45:43
Speaker
Like if I'd seen a trailer for it or something, I would have been ready for at least some of that. And I'm glad that I just went into it blind because I'm like, OK, this lady and there's her husband and OK, that's weird. And OK, and that's weird. It just you keep going further and further down the rabbit hole. This movie, it's it's fantastic to not know where the fuck you're going. Absolutely.
00:46:04
Speaker
Yeah, and it stands up to rewatch too, because it's one of those movies where there are so many details that your eye is not drawn to, that you pick up on subsequent watchings. Like this is the first time I picked up the tattoo. The first time I really clocked the tattoo. Yeah. Which again, it's there. It's very clearly there. But yeah.
00:46:26
Speaker
But then it's so it's it's not your attention is ever drawn directly to it. So it's easy to miss if you're not paying close enough attention. Yeah. Which most people aren't really paying attention when they watch movies these days anymore. They got their phones and yeah.
00:46:42
Speaker
I didn't look at my phone once when I watched this movie. Same. This was a really rewarding rewatch. I think this is the fourth time I've seen it. And one of the things that really stuck out to me this time is Jennifer Jason Lee. We love her. And that's one of the questions. That's one of the reasons I texted you earlier today and asked about spoilers.
00:47:04
Speaker
because one of the things that kills me about Jennifer Jason Lee's performance in this film is the first couple times I watched it, you see the way she's interacting for the first half of the movie and you think, this is a very icy, cold, bureaucratic, emotionless woman who's masking her real intentions and everything. And then knowing what you know about her character after you've seen the film, you rewatch it and her performance
00:47:34
Speaker
it's it's so subtle because that you want the audience to think that at first but knowing what we know now you rewatch and you think no no that's not that's not her bag it's she's depressed hopeless she has a terminal illness spoilers I guess
00:47:50
Speaker
She has a terminal illness and and and she's depressed and hopeless. Why wouldn't she want to go into the shimmer? You know what I mean? Absolutely. She has nothing left here. Like why not? Yeah, what might seem as indifference or or callousness is really just she's severely depressed and just That's that she's she's more
00:48:12
Speaker
Listless than anything else when she's having those conversations with her at first where you know Because because she's in the leadership role She doesn't have the camaraderie that the other four have who are all Talking with each other like the scene with Lena and Shepard in the boat where Shepard's kind of laying out Okay, well, what's her deal? What's her deal and Shepard's kind of laying it out for her like I lost a daughter you
00:48:37
Speaker
a lost a husband, quote unquote, because that's what she's basically told them. Yeah. Which I mean, technically true. Or is it? Question mark? That's not ambiguous at all. Right. There's so much ambiguity. That's not true. That is OG. Husband is straight up dead. Yeah, he fought his ass. What's ambiguous is, is she or not?
00:49:05
Speaker
Right. Well, she shimmers at the end. So obviously. But maybe that's just an effect that the exposure to the shimmer had to her. Maybe the shimmer mutates at a genetic level. You know, ambiguous endings are ratty shit. Yes. I agree. Which is why I like men, which is why I like a lot of that Alex Garland stuff. That's brave of you to admit on this podcast. I'm sorry, I couldn't help it. I like I know it's slow hanging fruit, but like, God damn it, like.
00:49:34
Speaker
Again, I'm mad at myself for that joke, but it always takes me time to get jokes. I couldn't pass it up. You guys, well, I understand. It's been so long since I've had a win. And see, I've been spending this entire podcast not making the low hanging Civil War joke of like, why would they, why would Marvel remake Civil War? Why would this be the one movie they would remake? And America's not even in it.
00:50:01
Speaker
I mean, Kirsten Dunst is in it, but she's MJ. That's a whole different frame. And she's not even RMJ. She's someone else's MJ. It's from a different universe. I'm not well-versed in Spider-Man, but at least I get that.
00:50:17
Speaker
Right. It's all good. Jennifer Jason Lee is just so good in this film. In fact, this fourth rewatch for me, I was like, maybe she's actually the best in the whole film, honestly. I might actually like her more than Portman in this. I mean, there's a case to be made for sure. I think
00:50:39
Speaker
The the lead three Portman Lee and Thompson are all knocking it out of the park. Like you get exactly what you expect from those actresses in an Alex Garland film. Like he is keeping them at their A game. And they're I mean, I think this might be one of Tessa Thompson's best performances. Well, I wish we had more with her, honestly. Yeah, because I really I really like
00:51:06
Speaker
what she does in this film, but it sucks that she kind of goes out two thirds of the way through because I was really digging what she was doing. I dig, I dug her eggs though. That was rad. That scene is fantastic. I really appreciated that a lot of the stuff in this film, when they could, it was practical. And the start of that transformation was practical and it looked fantastic. It looks so good. The bear close up. Yeah.
00:51:36
Speaker
Fantastic, so much good practical shit in this movie. Garland is really good at juxtaposing his practical effects with his CGI effects and really blending them in a really nice way. But no, you're right. Tessa Thompson, for as much as we do get from her, we don't get enough of her. And to borrow one of Steven's questions, what was your entry point to Tessa Thompson? Because if I'm not mistaken, this was mine.
00:52:02
Speaker
I think Veronica Mars for me. Oh, it would have been Veronica Mars then. Yeah. I don't remember her in that, but I've seen it. So season two, she's Wallace's girlfriend. I've never seen it. My wife watched that, but I've not seen it. Uh, I think this was my entry point to her. So for Tucker and me, it's Veronica Mars for you and Brett. It's annihilation.
00:52:23
Speaker
No, here's the deal. I don't remember her in Veronica Mars, though. So I think the first Creed movie would be my like official entry point that before this. And then I saw her in Thor. Well, that was the first one was 2015 was the first Creed. Huh? Well, I guess that was actually my entry point for I just didn't realize it. Yeah, she's great in all three of those movies. She's really good. Yeah.
00:52:46
Speaker
Yeah, but yeah, and then and then she started she started hitting Creed Selma Creed Thor Ragnarok, sorry to bother you, which she's phenomenal. It comes out 2018 the same year as this film. I think that's why I thought this was my entry point for her because I remember them both coming out the same year and maybe really impressed with her in both of them. Yeah.
00:53:10
Speaker
She's honestly, I think those are, when I said annihilation, maybe her best work there, a part of me is like, sorry to bother you. And I was like, possibly. I think her best work is close, is passing. That's, that's her best work. Oh, which I've not seen. It's fantastic. It's really, really fantastic. It's Jeff Nichols. Okay, I'll check that out.
00:53:35
Speaker
But yeah, love Tessa Thompson, excited for her to keep being in everything, honestly. Would love to see more work from her, honestly. She's fantastic. She's in like every Janelle Monáe video as well. That's good. Well, they were a couple for a while. I don't know if they still are, but they were a couple for a while. I don't think there's more. No, I don't think they are either.
00:54:02
Speaker
Um, but yeah, they dated for a, for a hot minute. So that would be, I would explain that, but yeah. Well, I'm glad, I'm glad that they broke up so that me and Chanel Monáe can get together. No big deal. Uh, no big deal. Speaking of, uh, liking men, um, uh, how did, how did Oscar Isaac make you feel in this movie? Some kind of way or?
00:54:27
Speaker
Oscar Isaac Prime is Lewin Davis for me. So no, like he looked all right in this, but I don't really like a lot of product in the hair. And like when it looks greasy like that, that's just not attractive to me. Like, but like Scruffy Lewin Davis, like the natural look on that boy. Ooh, yeah. Fuck yeah. I like the look that he gives.
00:54:50
Speaker
after Kane Prime has, has Fosbombed himself. And the, the, the mimic steps forward and like turns around and looks at the camera. Like, that's a good look. I like that. I mean, he's always, he's always a handsome boy. I'm just saying like, in this one, it didn't do it for me as much as other people. See, I think he's a real hunk in this one.
00:55:10
Speaker
Although I am partial to him in ex machina because he looks Identical to my favorite rapper of all time who's this name's cool ad he's he's the other dude from das racist I don't if you remember das race. Oh, yeah combination Taco Bell guys
00:55:27
Speaker
Well, they actually have good songs. That was just a joke song. But yeah, anyway, he looks just like the rapper from from Das Racist. Yeah, he kind of does. That's that's kind of incredible. Yeah, I dug his look in that movie, too. Yeah, he's got so many different looks. Man, again, in that born movie we watched, too, when he was in that cabin and like the drone came for him. Well, he was like the best part of that movie. The born legacy. The born legacy.
00:55:55
Speaker
He is the best part of that movie. That's not a bad movie. It's not a great movie. It's not bad. It's not bad. It's watchable is what I'm saying. And Oscar Isaac of it all makes it more watchable. Even though it's brief, it's fantastic. His character in this is very one note. He does not.
00:56:15
Speaker
have to do very much. But what he's doing, what he's doing, yeah, he could sleep walk through it, but he's really good at it. He's doing very well. Yeah, it's very, it's that can't be easy. It's just he's only asked to do one thing. Luckily, he's got that gear in his bag, he can use it.
00:56:30
Speaker
I mean, it's doing nothing is deceptively difficult. Like he's he's doing this kind of very placid, passive. I mean, even in the scenes where he's Cain, he's still almost he feels very detached. I mean, we get the reveal that she's been having an affair and he knows about it. And that's presumably why he volunteers to go into the shimmer at all. The least you can you get the impression that she thinks that's why he's doing right.
00:56:59
Speaker
Yeah, I, I don't really understand the inclusion of that plot element. I don't think that it really did anything for the stories or the characters. Well, for me, I took me out of the movie a bit. For me, it makes me- I was like, can you get on with this one and get back to the movie?
00:57:16
Speaker
For me, it makes me wonder, I think it helps because it's, you're wondering, you know, if she had this affair and she was cheating on her husband and he's been missing for this long, like, why does she want to go in there? You know, like their marriage was already fractured. So like, what, you know, what is it? Like, is it guilt that's driving her to go in there too? Because she knows it's probably a suicide mission also.
00:57:40
Speaker
or an attempt to salvage something that she broke and maybe there's a guilt element to it. Exactly. So I think that that little backstory that it does help at least to draw some conclusions about characters motivations or at least the psychology of them.
00:58:00
Speaker
I just think for me, it felt so random. And in this movie, they jump around a lot with flashbacks, and it works most of the time. But this one didn't work for me, I think, mostly because it's kind of it's kind of in the back half of the movie. And the only time we ever see that character is like in one scene in like the first 10 minutes of the film.
00:58:21
Speaker
I'd forgotten that dude even existed until she was jumping up and down on him, honestly. Yeah, I was going to say, when he invites her over to the house and she says, I got to paint the bedroom. I don't remember that. There's that scene at the very beginning. I believe you that's there.
00:58:38
Speaker
He's wearing a lot more clothes in that intro scene than he is later on. I just remember the scene where they're like in the office and like he has some papers or something. And I don't know. It kind of seemed weird, but like not enough to where I was like, I wonder what this guy's deal is.
00:58:53
Speaker
Yeah, I'll tell you this. It definitely could have been omitted from the film, and I don't think you lose anything. But this movie... I think Ellison wanted it omitted, honestly. You think so? Oh yeah. Yeah, like why do we need this?
00:59:10
Speaker
trying to make her seem a little more sympathetic as a character that's probably what that was alluding to then you're right but like honestly the movie's under two hours it's not like you needed to cut it for time reasons why not write in there if it layers your character at least a little bit better i mean i i feel like it didn't it didn't throw the whole movie off for me but it did just cut i almost i almost looked at my phone is what i didn't look at my phone i didn't
00:59:38
Speaker
But I almost looked at myself. Oh, God, a sex scene again. No, I didn't mind. But then I was like, oh, it's that guy. But why? And do I care? He's he's like one of three men in this movie, like really. And it's not going to be Benedict Wong. No, it was just it was a shrug moment, really. I was like, OK, I guess. I guess this is a thing we could do, I guess.
01:00:02
Speaker
But I mean, and I agree, I think it gives her a little more nuance as a character and it gives her at least a hint of some motivation as to why she might want to be in there. Now, again, those are never explicitly stated, but I don't necessarily feel like that's a bad thing.
01:00:18
Speaker
No, me either. And like, man, if you're an audience that needs all your protagonists to be ultra sympathetic in order for you to like care about what happens to them, for there to be stakes involved, then woof, my goof. I don't know. I just think that this film, there's a lot going on in the stakes department anyway. Exactly. And while I agree that this is
01:00:47
Speaker
It's not an addition to the film that throws the film off of its track at all. But it's still, I don't know. I could have done without it is what I'm saying. I said, I almost got my point. I didn't get it. I wasn't directing that criticism toward you as much as it was directed toward David Allison. Oh, well, I feel what he feels.
01:01:13
Speaker
It's more self-sabotage, which is what the movie talks about. Yeah, it's self-destruction. I mean, Jennifer Jackson Lee has a whole mini-monologue about self-destruction. Right. Yeah, that entire conversation. When they're up in the tower. Like a core of the movie, maybe.
01:01:33
Speaker
And I mean, she self-destructed her relationship. So that's why that resonates with her. And I think that leads her to make the decisions that she makes later in the film. And when they're having that conversation, as an audience, we don't know about Ventress's diagnosis.
01:01:53
Speaker
It's kind of interesting when she immediately takes Umbridge with her saying something about suicide mission. She's like, wait, you think this is a suicide mission? She's like, it's not suicide is our pension. We don't have a pension for for killing ourselves as much as it's self destruction more than anything else. Right.
01:02:11
Speaker
You know, and that, that's a little more poignant again on a subsequent rewatch when you, when you understand what Ventress's character is going through in that moment. Yeah. This, this, this is, this film gives a lot. The more you allow it at times. Yeah. It's like I said, it stands up to subsequent rewatch. Like knowing those twists as they come is.
01:02:33
Speaker
is is is nice to be able to start to put those pieces together. Like I said, this is like probably my third or fourth time watching this and it it gets better for me every time I watch it, for sure. I think I'd watch it again if it were like streaming on one of the services that I subscribe to. I'll see for free. Yeah, without add. No, it's on. It's a few. Yeah, I have to watch it. And that's.
01:03:01
Speaker
Well, I'm glad I rented it. Thanks, Stephen. Peacock didn't give me the option, but I rented it on Prime and it had like some promo where it only cost me four cents. Oh, nice. I didn't get the promo. Hell yeah. Let's do it. Four cents. Wait a minute. You know, some things on Peacock and Paramount Plus.
01:03:23
Speaker
You can only watch on your TV. You know what? No, I misspoke. It's on the library app Canopy. That's how I watched it. Well, I didn't know it was on Canopy either because I would have watched it on there. I'm rewatching Great Minds with Dan Harmon on Canopy right now. It's also on Hoopla, which is another library app. That one you can only watch on devices. But if you have the ability to cast, then you can cast it to your television. I can't believe you were trying to watch an Alex Garland movie on your frigging phone.
01:03:52
Speaker
I wasn't. Not you. Oh, who was you? No, dude, I watched it on my 4K display. Oh, well, three. We're all pretty. I was sitting about three feet from the screen. Oh, well, that's not good. Get a quick. Fantastic. Now, that's how I have it set up, don't you see?
01:04:15
Speaker
It's his way of trying to recreate the theatrical experience. Yeah. Well, that's another fun thing about the dreamlike qualities of this movie is that I saw it the Saturday after it opened. And I was one of the most hungover moments of my entire life to where I like I very well should have was probably still drunk.
01:04:37
Speaker
And, uh, and so is a very hazy, strange experience that is kind of fitting. Like now that I'm sober, it's different. I look at things differently now, but still. I liked, uh, I would like to have seen this in the movie theater.
01:04:58
Speaker
And so like when I watched it last night, some films, like I'll start watching them on my TV and I'll be like, Oh man, I want to go outside and have a smoke. And some movies, it's not a big deal if I'm just like, all right, I'll continue it on my phone while I go do that. But this movie, no, I had to like have an intermission and go outside. Like it felt too big to watch on my phone. Like I didn't feel like I'd be getting even close to the experience. I didn't get to watch it. It deserves it. Brett, Brett, didn't you say that you saw it in the theater as well? I did, yeah.
01:05:27
Speaker
Yeah, and talk to me about the rewarding nature of seeing something like this on such a big screen. Well, so funny story. I don't think I liked it as much the first time.
01:05:45
Speaker
Huh. Yeah, I don't know. I'm weird like that. Like sometimes movies like this, I have to see multiple times to really get it, which Steven right now is going, well, that's why you should watch Popeye more often. But like. The Robert Altman Popeye? Yup. That movie is a fucking masterpiece. I should have been on that episode because
01:06:09
Speaker
Uh, I that that was the first movie I watched when I was a kid. I was obsessed with robin williams And um, I was obsessed with harry nelson as well. So anyway, that's a digression I had to make Yeah, so I don't know like sometimes but like at the same time Speaking of papa sometimes. I just don't like a movie so much. I don't want to watch it again. But yeah, there's
01:06:33
Speaker
I don't know. I mean, I clearly liked it enough to read the book. I'm picturing Brett in the theater, arms crossed, nonplussed look on his face like, whatever, it's fine. Whatever. Bunch of chicks with guns, I mean. They put their bags down a lot. Half this movie's them putting their bags down. Yes, that's exactly what happened.
01:07:04
Speaker
That was 2018, Brett, for sure. I don't get it. It's not like their comms are going to work anyway. This is a futile effort. I mean, didn't they learn anything from the last three expeditions that went into this thing? Twelve expeditions. Oh, right. I need to watch it a little closer next time. Yeah, you do.
01:07:29
Speaker
But yeah, visually, man, this thing is gorgeous. This movie looks beautiful. The art direction, the cinematography, phenomenal. I'm kind of mixed on the cinematography, actually, because I thought some of it was really, really good. But I think some of it was maybe a little too...
01:07:50
Speaker
much. Who's the cinematographer on the Steven? Do you have to pull up? I do. It's Rob Hardy. Oh, it's like it's like he's he's really, really good at it. But he's also maybe trying a little too hard sometimes. It felt like for me like you saw 4K transfer of this, right? I did. Yes. Yeah. So it does look good. It's just like I questioned some of the cinematography just looks kind of off to me a lot of times when there's dialogue and they'll he'll shoot it to where
01:08:21
Speaker
the character, the camera kind of moves alongside the character. But then like when the character gets to the edge of the screen, they just kind of sit there and it's weird. And there's like nothing there's nothing else on this, nothing else interesting to look at on the screen. It's just like whatever. And the character is way over here.
01:08:41
Speaker
And like, that's cool every once in a while. What I felt like with every dialogue scene with more than like two characters, like that's all they were doing. And it just got kind of, it got kind of old for me, but that's a minor nitpick because it wasn't enough to take me out of the movie or even to make me not like the movie. It's just, I noticed it a few times. I was like, that's kind of odd, but all right, cool.
01:09:06
Speaker
I will tell you, Tucker, in addition to being Garland's regular cinematographer, he also directed a little movie that I know you love that we're going to be covering behind the paywall relatively soon called The Book of Clarence. Oh, yeah, dude. Oh, I wanted to see that. Yeah, he shot that one. We're probably going to do that for my Upsall Christianity Corner show behind the paywall. We are. We absolutely are. I've already decided so.
01:09:36
Speaker
Tucker's already put it on the calendar. So yeah. But yeah, no, I love the art direction. Like, I love how, particularly with all the stuff with the fungus, the lichens and shit, like, yeah, those flowers, when they're talking about how those flowers can't, shouldn't be able to exist on the same, on the same plant together, because they're different species and everything.
01:10:02
Speaker
those flowers are gorgeous. And I mean, they're all over the place. Yeah. I mean, the sets are just littered with them, especially like you said, the lichens and everything like it looked like a mural. It's just, man, the color choices. I mean, there's so many categories. I feel like this could have been nominated and production design and art direction is one of them. Just yeah. Sound design as well. Visual effects. I was going to say something about the sound design, too. I thought it was really effective.
01:10:32
Speaker
I had mine set on 5.1, which my soundbar duplicates, replicates pretty well, about as well as you can. And it sounded really good. I never had trouble hearing the dialogue.
01:10:46
Speaker
Hey, you guys know what, though? Speaking of the sound, this is more about the music, but speaking of the music, I was hoping that main theme, that main theme that plays through that acoustic guitar, that's like, it's just like kind of doing a finger pluck thing. I wrote that song. In 2007, a very, very similar song, and you can go to my YouTube
01:11:13
Speaker
YouTube dot com slash I sign on I see in I in the number zero and the number nine. And listen to it's fucking called something fucking call. Shit is that song called Steven? I don't know, man. I'm pulling up your it's called a loss for words, a loss for words is what it's called. So it sounds like you've got a bone to pick with Ben Salisbury. No, I don't because like it's not close enough.
01:11:42
Speaker
to where I would ever in a million years think that someone was ripping off my little song that I made almost 20 years ago that like 10 people heard. But it's just uncanny how similar some of the transitions and
01:11:59
Speaker
There's a lot of, it's all the same notes. They're just slightly in a different way. It's the exact sort of thing that people do rip off though. Like they go find a tiny little YouTube channel and like nobody will know if I ripped this off. Oh no. But also, people be having similar ideas, man. Like you have keys and scales and music for a reason because those notes go together well.
01:12:18
Speaker
You're right, there's nothing new under the sun. Correct. I firmly believe it's coincidence. I don't think anybody's stealing my music. I just could not believe how similar some of it was. Just that main theme. It's wild. I'm adding it to the show notes for you. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a great idea. Well, then your song must be really good because I love the music in this.
01:12:42
Speaker
It's okay. No, the theme in this was better. It just had a lot of elements from my song. That's what I was saying. It's way better. Way, way, way, way, way better. It's like every way. The music in this is really great. It's Ben Salisbury and Jeff Barrow who did the music for Ex Machina, which is one of my favorite scores in a long, long time.
01:13:02
Speaker
Um, and man, this is, it's got some similar, like electronic elements to that, but this is much more sparse. This is much more vibes based much more.
01:13:15
Speaker
It really crescendos in the tone of the music throughout the entire film. By the time you get to the end, it's something completely different than it was. By the time you get to the lighthouse scene, you've really got a lot of like discordant stuff happening. You're like, how did we get here from an acoustic guitar? Yeah. And a lot of this happened.
01:13:35
Speaker
Really grading overdriven sounds so like processed guitars. It's just like just over distorted drums. Yeah, just really cool Score here, but but again, it's really sparse
01:13:52
Speaker
But I think that really helps to build the mood. In the Lighthouse scene, I mentioned this in the group chat earlier, that's one of the most ubiquitous spooky video sounds on TikTok. Somebody just took that, and if there's a spooky video on TikTok, it's using that music.
Inspirations and Unique Elements in 'Annihilation'
01:14:11
Speaker
Oh, really? So do you think annihilation is being seen more now because of that?
01:14:16
Speaker
No, because I doubt anybody knows it's from that. That it's from it. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't realize it until I watched the movie and I was like, wait a minute. That's a. Yeah.
01:14:29
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I love the music that the particularly again, I think and I think it's the theme that you're talking about, Brett, that theme at the end, during the fight scene between Lena and and the doppelganger like that. It's it's got like a Zimmer element in that you kind of have like the big kind of bass thing, but it's not done in like that overly obnoxious, simplistic Zimmer like, and I mean, no disrespect to Zimmer, but he tends to rely on the wall a lot more these days than he used
01:14:58
Speaker
It's very, it's very heavy, resonant bass. Whereas with this, it's not real bassy. It's more like, like, just like overdriven, like real static feeling, you know? Definitely. Yeah. And it, yeah, I think it works really well for the scene. I think it lines up, um,
01:15:21
Speaker
I don't know, it really just kind of puts you in it. It's so discordant in certain ways that it really like creates this sense of unease that's amplified by the visuals that we're seeing on the screen. The fact that this thing looks so human and yet so not like that almost uncanny valley aspect of it, but it's all intentionally.
01:15:44
Speaker
Right. Yes. Not like a lawnmower man, Jeff. He got away. Correct. Yeah, it looks it looks good, but also off putting not off putting because of the design or the like the the effects, but off putting just in the design of the thing like how it looks. So, no, I love that scene. I love the ending of this movie. It the the entire set piece at the lighthouse is
01:16:12
Speaker
Just absolutely incredible. I love it so much. Yeah. Where she's tunneling down into what, what in the book, what, what in the book they refer to as she refers to as a tower and not a tunnel, but a long spiral staircase was writing on the wall. And there's like a creature down there, like crawler as they call the crawler. Yeah. Yeah.
01:16:34
Speaker
But really, once they get to the lighthouse there that last half hour or so, I mean, it's real hold your breath kind of stuff. And the music really adds to it. And gosh, that little tunnel is pretty terrifying.
01:16:53
Speaker
Like so many of the, like this, this movie is a psychological horror film. And I think the horror visuals really get ramped up in the, in that last set piece there. I mean, you've got the, the bear, which is a horrific looking thing. And I don't want to minimize that because that thing is terrifying. And the fact that it's screaming in human voice is somehow the scariest thing about it. It's fucking unhinged.
01:17:22
Speaker
Like it opens its mouth to roar and it's screaming help me in the voice of their lost colleague. You notice like part of its skull was like made up of a human skull like part of a human skull on one side. I thought that was interesting because it was like like everything is fused in this world. And so at some point he killed somebody and like their skull fused into it.
01:17:42
Speaker
For all we know it's her. Yeah. Yeah. Right. It could be her. And that's another improvement from the book. Like in the book, it's just, he screams in a human voice. Yeah. Yeah. From the distance to distance. Yeah. Yeah. And so in this one, they add, Oh, they can mimic a human voice, which is just 10 times creepier.
01:18:01
Speaker
The thing that Tessa Thompson says about it absorbing her final dying thoughts and that's the part of her that lives on through this creature.
01:18:13
Speaker
Is like that's where the existential horror starts like getting cranked for me And then it just doesn't stop cranking until we're done like but that just is Existentially horrifying that notion that the your last thoughts being like fear and dread and horror and that being the thing that survives on after you pass like God that freaks me out
01:18:37
Speaker
Of the $32 million worth of people who went and saw this film, I believe that that is the scene that really resonated with most people. That was the one word of mouth thing that the film had is like, you're not gonna believe this one scene with this fucked up bear. Oh, the bear is one thing. You guys, I'm a horror guy, right? So I've seen all the things and I can look at all the stuff.
01:19:05
Speaker
Right. But because of the way that this film works, the way that it kind of gains momentum, when you get to the point in the film where they're showing the video of Oscar Isaac cutting the dude's stomach open. Oh, my God. It wasn't it wasn't even the way it looked. It wasn't even how gory it was. It was just how intense the film had made itself at that point.
01:19:28
Speaker
I couldn't look. I covered my fucking eyes, you guys. Oh, man, it covered my eyes. This guy, it was a little sprinkling. That's fantastic. Who is fantastic? Because there's multiple instances of it.
01:19:43
Speaker
Yeah, I've seen grosser stuff. I've seen grosser stuff than that. But just the way the film got us there. And then when we got to that spot, it had it right where it already ratcheted it up for you. Yeah. The look on Oscar Isaac's face, the look on the other guy's face, whose stomachs getting hacked into like it's like I thought I was going crazy for it. I had to look away. I was like, no, dude. And the look on the women's faces at how like horrified they are by looking at it and that, you know, that it all adds to it.
01:20:12
Speaker
Yeah, I'd love to hear like I saw a YouTube video on with Joseph Kahn, where he was just he spent about a half an hour breaking down one scene from detention. And I would love to have Alex Garland do that just for that. The bear scene. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the bear scene. But for me, the the cut one is also woof.
01:20:36
Speaker
I want to I just want to hear him give me about 30 minutes on like a five minute scene where they hack the dude's stomach apart. And it's all I want to know everything about that from conception to execution to intention. I want to. Director's commentary somewhere. But like an extended one. Yeah, you really want some like where they stop the movie and talk for like a half an hour and then continue.
01:21:00
Speaker
Okay, yeah right on it's crazy the body or in this movie isn't inspired a lot of Sci-fi literature especially in the tabletop RPG world Really for some reason. I don't know why like because
01:21:17
Speaker
The scene where they find the body plastered against the wall, it's like the skeleton more or less. Not really, it's partially decayed. It's got the plants and fungus and all that. It's like a fungus, yeah. It's beautiful, man. It is. That's an image I've seen referenced a lot in multiple places. Yeah, it was in The Last of Us.
01:21:42
Speaker
That too. Some of us uses it as well. So, you know, Annihilation might not have done that great at the box office, but man, its influence is like everywhere. The white people saw it and loved it. And that's why we're here. Well, and that's another thing. The critics consensus was very positive, but audiences were just so mixed on it. Right. Which I think that tends to be
01:22:07
Speaker
the chalice that Alex Garland tends to court for himself, tends to serve himself with. And one of the biggest problems with that is when you hear that, that critics loved it, audiences didn't care for it so much.
01:22:21
Speaker
Nine times out of 10, that is marketing. That is the production company marketing it poorly. Either we're afraid of what audiences are going to think, so we're going to market it totally different than what it is, which is probably the case here. Or they didn't really know what they had, and so they didn't know how to market it. I think it's a combination of both of those, honestly.
01:22:47
Speaker
You know, I think I think it's telling that that Ex Machina was a 24. This was Paramount and Skydance. And after this, Garland went straight back to a 24. And he's pretty much stayed there since. Yeah, exactly. And I think it's I think that he knew he had something special on his hands and just Paramount butt fucked it. Honestly, the release. I think you're going to in a lot of cases like this, too, I think it comes down to what did it open against as well?
01:23:16
Speaker
That is a good question. We will get there. Yeah, we'll get there. What a segue. Are we are we pivoting? Are we because I want to talk about the ending more. That was not my intention. No, I was just saying that I think that based on the context of the conversation we were just having, I think it would also be fair to say that the films that are also coming out or holding over the box office enter into it as well.
01:23:39
Speaker
Yeah, we will discuss that toward the end of the episode, but I want to talk the ending because I love this ending. Everything at the lighthouse is absolutely fucking incredible. The visuals of that scene are unbelievable, the crystalline trees and all of that. From the moment she puts her backpack down on the beach and starts walking, I am like,
01:24:02
Speaker
Hey, that's the last bag pack that gets put down in this movie. It is. Like that's the last check. All done. You know, I don't think you'd survive a drinking game where you take a shot every time they put their fucking bags down.
01:24:20
Speaker
No, like the beginning of every scene is that, well, we're at a place. I've got to ship out the bags down. Yeah. Let's bill it here, I guess bags down, which I appreciate it because that's very realistic. That's exactly what you would fucking do in that situation. So I appreciate it for hours. Yeah, I did just think it was funny, though, how many times we saw it. Yeah. But yeah, I feel like a few times it's implied, but like that's cool. I was garland. I enjoyed seeing it.
01:24:49
Speaker
The ending of this movie is so, another thing that's so impressive about the ending of this film is that there are long stretches where there is no dialogue, but there's still a lot of things being conveyed, like that little dance that they do where the shimmer version of her is mimicking her movements, mirroring her movements.
01:25:14
Speaker
And I mean, there's long stretches where it's just nothing but that score going. And no one's saying anything. But like I said, so much information is still being conveyed. And those are some of my favorite endings is when you don't need any dialogue we all of the dialogue has built up to this now now it's a big climax where you just watch it unfold.
01:25:41
Speaker
Right. And it, God, it's so beautiful. It's so gorgeous. The scene with, so apparently the girl that plays the student at the beginning of the film was the girl who played Natalie Portman's double.
Garland's Signature Style
01:25:55
Speaker
The, the, the quote humanoid is what they call her. Sonoyo Mizuno is the actress's name. So she is the, she's in Ex Machina and Deb. She's the main,
01:26:06
Speaker
Excuse me. She's the main character in Devs and she's the Japanese assistant who turns out to be a robot. That's right. That's right. In Ex Machina. Yeah. She's also the voice of the police operator in men and she has a role in four. So she's a Garland. She's a Garland. She's part of that stable, dude. She's in the Garland stable. Yeah.
01:26:30
Speaker
Yeah, and we love to see it, truly. I love it when directors find their people, find their group, and bring them back every time. I'm a big sucker for that. Let's see, that's what I like with them and everything.
01:26:51
Speaker
Tucker, I was I was going to say that's what I like about the Coen brothers films because they do bring a lot of people back, but they also throw a lot of new people. They really mix it up, but like they still I don't know. It's like, you know, you have the Avengers and then you have like the guys that sometimes help out the Avengers. Right. Well, not charter members, but like reserves. Yes, reserves. And that's.
01:27:16
Speaker
I like it when you have a staple that big that you can have mains and reserves. I mean, he tends to work with the same people over and over, like his, the composers or his people, the cinematographers, his guy. Like he's, he found early the people he liked to work with and is stuck with them pretty consistently from what I can see, which is awesome. I really do love to see that. Well, and like Ryan Johnson, he's not afraid to put the star of one movie in a cameo in the next.
01:27:43
Speaker
You know, he's not afraid to shuffle people around, give people a chance to shine in different roles and stuff. Absolutely. And I dig that. I dig that a lot. I'm anxious to know what his next film is going to be and who he's going to cast in it, quite frankly. Oh, shit. See who comes back. I think I already knew the answer to this and I forgot it and then I didn't look it up. So I'm going to just leave that one alone.
01:28:09
Speaker
It will be a mystery forever. He can, he can do literally whatever he wants to do. He did say that he is done directing and that he wants to go back to just writing now. Oh, real interesting. Okay. He's done. I mean, it's, it's a thing.
01:28:24
Speaker
Yeah, I think he already has one thing that is that he's either almost done with or done with. So one of the in production called Warfare, and that will be his fifth and apparently final film if you want to believe that. But that's that's OK. Like I like he's a he's a really good director, but he's not like to me, he's not like an auteur. So like it wouldn't really bother me.
01:28:49
Speaker
too much if he went back to writing. I'm glad we got these really good ass movies that he did a really good job directing, but there's nothing really that stands out about him as a filmmaker outside of just making really fucking good movies. Does that make sense? Because I'm such a giant fanboy, I would push back against that because I think that he does have a very specific style and a look to his films.
01:29:13
Speaker
And so I kind of, you kind of know a garland joint when you're looking at it. And I think for me, and I wrote this down earlier, one of his calling cards is, I don't know of a director who does a better job of juxtaposing nature with technology.
01:29:35
Speaker
And it's like buildings, like brutalist architecture that's next to like a babbling broker or something like that, you know? But he's such a great eye for taking nature and blending it with either modern architecture or specifically technology, especially... It's a really beautiful magic trick that he does that I think he does better than almost any other director.
01:30:05
Speaker
and i think that one of his signature styles is is ultra modern looking technology or architecture mixed with nature a lot of greenery a lot of dirt a lot of blue skies i did i i do know what you're talking about but i think
01:30:21
Speaker
I think my handicap here lies in that I have less context because I've only seen Ex Machina in this. I haven't seen Men, I haven't seen Civil War. So perhaps if I had seen those other two, like I'd have more examples and I'd be like, okay, that's a director's trademark. From what I've seen, like I said to me with those two movies, he's just really good at directing movies. Yeah. Yeah. And what's funny is that those are his first two movies. Yeah. He did Devs after that and then Men and then Civil War.
01:30:49
Speaker
which I do wanna watch. He's really just been honing his craft.
01:30:54
Speaker
He really has. And yeah, he's become one of the more exciting directors. I am kind of bummed that he's said he's not going to do it anymore because I feel like he is a very unique voice in modern science fiction that we don't have but desperately need. Because we get a lot of cookie cutter stuff. Give me 10 more of these and let eight of them flop. I don't care. As long as it's this and not the Adam project or something. Right. Oh, god. Yeah. Yeah.
01:31:24
Speaker
Um, so you guys mentioned that the ending of the book very different from the ending of the film. Let's talk about that a little bit before we, before we wrap up tonight. Brett, you want to take this? Sure. Yeah. So, um, I, so really, so her husband dies at the beginning of the book. That's not even, that doesn't even factor in. Yeah, there's none.
01:31:48
Speaker
Yeah, and she chooses to stay in area X. Yeah, it's not called the shimmer in the book. She chooses to stay to investigate it and like do research and find out what happened to her husband. So she never comes back. Yeah, it's just that. But but no spoilers. We do see her again in the books. Okay. Yeah. And she's got a new name and everything. Hmm.
01:32:20
Speaker
So what does that mean? Well, again, I think that definitely plays to Garland not really caring about developing the other two books in the series. He's just like, you know, I'm gonna do my thing with this. And if someone else wants to come along and try to figure it out.
01:32:38
Speaker
God bless. In that respect, it's a little different from what we normally do, because usually it's like, yeah, I've got plans for the next three of these things and I want to do them. And Garland's like, no, don't want that. Sorry. Yeah. It seemed definitely when Paramount bought the rights, it was with the intention to do all three, but it seemed like Alexander was like, I'm going to make mine. And if, and if, uh, David Ellison wants to make the rest of them and make them real, the real watered down, then he can get McG to do it or something.
01:33:09
Speaker
fucking mcgee and it's really tough to he also sort of in my opinion maybe wrote the ending in such a way and it's like you know yeah figure out how to make a sequel to this we want to follow this up yeah
Sequel Challenges and Director Reflections
01:33:25
Speaker
Yeah, good. Good luck. Because it doesn't really afford you that opportunity. Oscar, as it gets killed off screen somehow and now the program goes back in for reasons and we're back. OK. I can't believe I wasn't here to defend Mickey. You guys, I had to go pee and like these guys were talking about something. I don't remember. And so I was like, I've got time. And I get in there and they start shitting on Mickey and I'm like, oh, no. Oh, I got to wash my hands right now.
01:33:55
Speaker
Well, thank you for washing your hands. I do appreciate that. I appreciate that. Hey, you know, it's standard practice. So so Alex Garland, not an auteur, Mcgee absolute auteur. Is that what I'm hearing from you, Tucker? Not really. I don't think so. He kind of has a style, but it's kind of it's it's doesn't general. It's too it's too general of a style to be. I don't know. It's barely his own, is what I'm saying.
01:34:25
Speaker
I think he's competent. I think he's competent as fuck. But also, I don't think he really has a few trademarks, but not enough to like really give a shit about. Honestly, I think his main trademark is that his name is Mickey. Yes. Well, there's that. Yeah, the first five of our first five seasons of Supernatural are pretty good. You got you got Supernatural. You got those Charlie Angels movies. Well, they were rad as shit.
01:34:53
Speaker
Well, you're really the first five seasons of Supernatural agree. Wait, why were they not? What are did it? Was it reassessed and now people don't like it? I still like them. Both of them. I think they're fantastic. I'm sure also, I really love you'll have ample opportunity to talk about how you how much you'll watch that because I was like, you know, sometimes Kristen Stewart isn't stuff that just doesn't get enough publicity or maybe is taken the wrong way.
01:35:24
Speaker
But I'm pretty sure that movie sucks, but I'm excited to watch which. The 2019 Charlie Charlie Angel, which we will cover on this podcast one day. Even she regrets doing that. But, hey, Mcgee, though, Terminator Salvation, you guys, come on. I haven't seen it yet. That's. Wait until we cover it on the podcast. Definitely better than Terminator three. Is that the Christian Bale one?
01:35:48
Speaker
Yeah, dude, it's actually kind of fun. Damn it. Oh, good for you. It's so good. It's the only Terminator movie I have on Blu-ray. It's so good. I love it. I'm here trying to listen to Jimmy.
01:36:05
Speaker
Oh, right. I will back you up on the Christmas Day because underwater slaps. Yeah. Carry on. Carry on. I'm just glad that I have brought some respect to McGee's name here tonight on this podcast. Thank you. Future episode of this podcast underwater.
01:36:20
Speaker
Yeah, boy. Past and future episode of this podcast under one. The previous episode does not exist, Brett. That's true. Yeah, it does. Give it to me. Our last episode. That was a funny play on words. Brett, send it to me. Brett, send it to me. Did you say past and future guest? That was a past and future episode. I thought it was funny. Okay. Is Vincent Castellana
01:36:42
Speaker
Yes. I remember that trailer. Okay. Okay. You want to talk about a movie that like you have to pay attention to. Yes. Underwater. Absolutely. Okay. But you're not kidding. It actually is pretty good. Yeah. Oh yeah. And then it's, you really like most of it storytelling is done in the background or like without any dialogue. So you have to pay attention. I'm into that. I do love paying attention.
01:37:11
Speaker
You do? We know you do. Paying attention is tight. If you love paying attention during movies, do I have a skin-a-mar- I mean movie for you.
01:37:22
Speaker
What is it? I'll watch it. What is it? I like that. You don't have to. It's fine. Skinema Rink is slow cinema horror. That's the elephant show, Skinema Rink, right? They do the song. That's not the elephant show. I'm not sure about the brand's elephant show. No. Same thing. All underneath the moon? No. None of that. Skinema Rink is what happens if David Lynch directed the Blair Witch Project. That's Skinema Rink.
01:37:51
Speaker
Yeah, it's no, no, that sounds great. Actually, I was going to say, it's not at all. I can tell I'm going to love you. Let's go. What's up. Am I the only one that kind of likes get a marine? It's the slowest police are coming to key right now. It's the slowest. There he is. There he is. Officers. That's him right there. No.
01:38:16
Speaker
Straight up, no. If they take me away, who's going to end the podcast? Oh, I have plans. Oh, geez. I have a plan. So Annihilation comes out February 23rd in the year of our Lord 2018. It opens in fourth place that weekend. In first place in its second weekend is a little movie called
01:38:45
Speaker
Black Panther. Oh, yeah, that's pretty all right. Yeah. In the number two spot, a movie, I think, is actually really, really fucking good. Jason Bateman, Rachel McAdams, and the great Jesse Plemons in Game Night.
01:39:05
Speaker
Yeah, I ain't seen that. Should I watch that? Would I like that, Steven? I like that a lot better than I expected to. Look, if you're going to do an episode on game night, you better hurry the fuck up before they make a sequel to it. No, because if they make a sequel, we have to cover the sequel if we've already covered it. So that is that's our covenant with our audience. So if there is like a sequel in development, we tend to like back off, although we've got a couple down coming down the pipeline where they're
01:39:32
Speaker
We were a little fuzzy on that, so. Game Night is better than it has any right to be. It's very fun. Very good. It is. It's very good. It's a very funny idea. Was not expect my expectations were not high and they were so exceeded. Sharon Horgan and Billy Magnussen together are just so funny. So they're really funny. Agreed. In third place, a little movie called Peter Rabbit in its third weekend. Fucking what?
01:39:59
Speaker
opening ahead of Annihilation in fourth place. The star of Peter Rabbit is... was the star of Alex Garland's previous film Ex Machina, Dom Nall Gleason. Oh yeah, that dude. Yeah. The main dude. The main son, yes. Yeah, the main dude. Son of the great Brendan Gleason. He was the guy with... he had the face in that movie, yeah.
01:40:23
Speaker
Sure did.
Box Office and Critical Reception
01:40:25
Speaker
He always gives good face. He's always got the face going on, for sure. He does, yeah.
01:40:31
Speaker
In fifth place that weekend, it's the third weekend of Fifty Shades Freed, which is one of those movies I don't care about. Rounding out the top 10, we've got Jumanji, Welcome to the Jungle, in sixth place, in seventh place, the 1517 to Paris. The what now? The 1517 to Paris. What the fuck is this shit? Yeah, this is a Clint Eastwood movie about a terrorist. I mean, it doesn't just roll off the tongue, you know? It's real easy to remember.
01:41:01
Speaker
a terrorist attack on a train and he casts the survivors of that, like the people who like talk to terrorists, he casts them in the movie. They're not actors. What do we think about that? What do they think about that? They got to be in a Clint Eastwood movie. What do you think?
01:41:18
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. There are military dudes who got to be in a Clint Eastwood movie. It was literally the highlight of look of their life. I would love this bus station from terrorists. Right. I would straight up love a documentary on that. I'm not going to watch that movie until there's a documentary made about it. That's all I'm saying. I think that's a great chance to make. And then when you're done with the documentary, go ahead and don't watch the movie. Correct. I'm watch it. I'm going to watch it anyway.
01:41:45
Speaker
Well, that's what Clint wants you to do. So yeah, that's fine. Look, you know, he's not great now, but he's so enough goodwill with me like in the 70s and shit that like I can't I can't like I'm not against with the unprofessional actors in the 15 to seven 70 to Paris. And here's the thing. Like I'm interested in that. Like I want to see that because I've never seen something like that before. And even if it sucks, like I'm glad that I watched it because like if I didn't watch it, I'd be wondering like,
01:42:13
Speaker
How much does that suck? I wish I knew. There's a reason why it was, what was that, Stephen 7th or 8th on the box office list this week? Yeah, it's 7th after three weeks in release. It has earned, I mean, in fairness, it's earned almost the entire domestic box office of annihilation at this point. Well, it's also directed by Clint Eastwood.
01:42:38
Speaker
I mean, look, Clinton knows his audience and he makes movies for his audience and they come out credit where credit's due. Yes, he does. Game recognized game. What does my audience want to see me in a threesome? Yeah, but but also play Misty for me, though. I'm just saying there's so much good Clint Eastwood. Like I'm willing to let the bad Clint Eastwood downslide. That's fair. There's so much. There's so much back catalog. They railroaded that guy.
01:43:04
Speaker
He got railroaded, y'all. He railroaded that motherfucker. In eighth place, we've got the greatest showman in 10 weeks. I mean, it's it's earned one hundred and sixty million dollars on its way to. Barnum one with huge Ackman. Yeah. Yeah. And that's just its domestic box office. It made a shitload of money overseas. Mm hmm. If that weren't a biopic, we would be getting sequels to that shit.
01:43:31
Speaker
Um, in ninth place, a movie called every day, which seems to be, uh, some kind of romance teen romance movie with angry, right? And, uh, justice Smith. What if there was a day every day? What if every day there was a day? What if every day every day? Uh, and then in 10th place, uh, early man, early man, early man. It was an art man, artman film. That's what that was. That was my guess. Yeah. With Eddie Redmayne and Tom Hiddleston.
01:44:01
Speaker
Hmm. Yeah. And then 11th place, you got all the Oscar contenders for from the previous year. Still in theaters. Yeah. Three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri. Shape of Water, The Post, Phantom Thread. Like it's all there. So nice. Give me that Phantom Thread, baby. Oh, yeah, baby. Love it. That's my second favorite billboards. Just say it. Missed me with that. Phantom Thread is my second favorite PTA Daniel Day-Lewis collaboration. Same.
01:44:31
Speaker
Yeah, same. You can't go wrong with DDL. DDL is where it's at. Pretty much, yeah. Phantom Red is also my favorite of Johnny Greenwood's scores. Ooh, I buy that. I don't remember it, but I need to, I'm due for a rewatch on that one.
01:44:49
Speaker
Annihilation makes 32.7 million domestic. There's another 10.3 international for a grand total of 43 million worldwide. And that's against a production budget of 55 million. Yeah.
01:45:07
Speaker
Yeah, so that's a real fumbled bag there. And again, a lot of it, the blame lays at Ellison's feet for deciding to kick international distribution on Netflix. They broke even off of Homebox Office, but still. Homebox Office doesn't make it sound like it. They broke even on HBO. HBO? Yeah. No, but they did break even because it did really well streaming and rental and all of that.
01:45:34
Speaker
Yeah, I believe that because I mean, it's it's an intense watch. It's really fun. Well fun. It's a good watch.
01:45:42
Speaker
I thought it was fun. It's a cute show. I'd say it's fun. It's a banger. The Tomatometer score is an 88% certified fresh. See what I mean? The Critic's Consensus Annihilation backs up its sci-fi visual wonders and visceral genre thrills with an impressively ambitious and surprisingly strange exploration of challenging themes that should leave audiences pondering long after the credits roll.
01:46:06
Speaker
Yes. Word. The meta score is a 79 from generally favorable reviews from 51 critics. And Tucker, you want to take a stab at the letterbox score? You know, I think. On this movie, I'm going to go. 3.0 to 3.4 because I have a four point four spread. So 3.0 to 3.4. What is it? Hit me with it. Hit me. 3.6.
01:46:36
Speaker
Really? Wow. Wow. Letterbox crawled out of its own ass and made it made a good judgment there. Like what's funny is if I had a four point spread, I would have guessed three point six to four point. Oh, so because when you said three point six, I was like, it's a little lower than I expected. OK. Yeah. Let's tell you round up. It's fair. I'm just saying.
01:47:00
Speaker
The time has come for us to give our own opinions. Noah, as our guest, out of five stars, how many are you giving to Alex Garland's annihilation? Four and a half. Four and a half. Brett, what about you? I also give a four and a half. Right on. Tucker? That's just solid four. Like the most solid four possible, like with several bullets.
01:47:25
Speaker
kind of a four. Yeah. OK. I'm very far. I had it as a four the last time I watched it. I bumped it up to a four point five on this rewatch. There it is. I love it. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, I do dig this movie. It's it is fantastic. And it's like with with with Brett and I, it's like, yeah, it's a four and a half. It's like, what are you docking it for? And it's like, I don't know. What am I talking about? Like,
01:47:54
Speaker
I can't even tell you what prevents it from being a five. I don't know what it is. I usually don't care in this sense, but I don't know. Five stars indicates it's a perfect movie. Yeah. That's usually where I go to. Yeah. I don't know. I can't tell you what exactly is keeping it from being a perfect movie, but I just can't in good conscience say it's a perfect movie. I think for me- I think two more rewatches and I could get there.
01:48:22
Speaker
You think so? I've seen it four times and I'm starting to think like, like maybe by the sixth time I might be like, you know what is perfect.
01:48:30
Speaker
uh i think i think what's prevented it from me though this this far is that the movie that came right before it was perfect five stars and so i watched this one i'm like that is fucking great is it as good as x margana no so it can't be five you know and that's not really fair you know no it's not fair to annihilation for sure yeah exactly but that he shouldn't have made such a good movie after a really good movie
01:48:58
Speaker
That's where you should have put men. Right. Yeah, men. Yeah, men. Yeah, because then this would have seemed like a rebound rebound after after that. I like men a lot. A lot. You've you've established that. Yeah.
01:49:19
Speaker
I feel like if I experienced men that I would love men, but I just have not, I've not.
Guest's Personal Stories and Projects
01:49:24
Speaker
No desire. Into men. It's just not my thing. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if I get into it. I feel like I'm open to men. All I would say is don't knock it till you've tried it. Yeah. I feel like I'm good at there. I'm good at experiencing men, you guys. It's going to happen. It's coming out from Fargo season four in it. So I'm going to, I'm going to experience some men.
01:49:47
Speaker
I also enjoyed the Alex Garland film, man. There you go. You figured it out. I love how specific you are, Steven. I love that. Right. It's odd, but. I don't know. Odd that I would put that final point on it. I don't know. Yeah. People don't know what I'm talking about. Anyway, sure, of course. On this podcast, absolutely. Steven, what's your favorite entry point on Natalie Portman? What's the question you asked earlier in the podcast?
01:50:14
Speaker
No, I did not say favorite entry point. Oh, my 12. He did not say favorite. I embellished your shirt. Oh, and on that note, Noah, thank you so much for joining us, man. This has been a treat, an absolute delight. Thanks for having me. Well, let's do hot rod eventually.
01:50:36
Speaker
I'll get it on the list. Absolutely. Noah, where can we find you on socials? Do you want to be found on socials? What are you working on these days? And where can we find it? Plug, sir. I am on socials as the name Boy Robison, like Roy Orbison, but not that.
01:50:54
Speaker
And I've been working on a lot of music scoring. I did the music for the podcast, for this movie history podcast called The Answer to the Previous Question. It's like a history podcast about early starlets from the switch from black and white to talkies. Okay. Right on.
01:51:24
Speaker
and so yeah I've been doing doing trying to do uh music for film and television so uh that's that's what I've been up to lately although so I haven't I haven't acted in quite a while but I was we my wife and I took the baby to oh charlie's today real fancy night out to eat oh yeah and I saw somebody I knew there and I saw somebody I knew they were in there and celebrating their grandfather's birthday
01:51:49
Speaker
And they wanted to come over and look at the baby and then they go back to their seat. About a half an hour later, they come over with cake, her and her little daughter who's like nine. And she goes, she wanted to bring you some cake. She she looked you up on IMDB and saw that it was your birthday yesterday. So we brought you cake. Oh, well, happy belated birthday. Thank you for spending it with us. Yeah, well, I just I had a blast. Thank you so much. And I hope we get to do this again.
01:52:18
Speaker
Oh, we'll absolutely get you in for another episode, for sure. For sure. For sure. This is the disenfranchised podcast. You can find us on, what are we on now? Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, and Letterboxd and YouTube at Disenfranch Pod.
01:52:36
Speaker
You can find our Patreon, patreon.com slash disenfranch pod where you can get episodes of Upsall Christianity Corner, Upsall Video Game Corner. What are we watching? Find out what we've been watching. Well, mostly Tucker and Brett because I've been I've had to peace out on a couple of the more recent ones. But yeah, find out what we've been watching there behind that paywall. Just five bucks a month gets you access to hours, hours of bonus podcasts, as many as your as your sweet ears want to hear.
01:53:08
Speaker
And yeah, choose an email to some French pod at gmail.com. Let us know how we're doing. Let us know all the Tucker you mad because I forgot to mention that the Patreon is the official comment section of the podcast. Is that why you're giving me that shitty face?
01:53:25
Speaker
I know I just had some intestinal distress is all that was, Stephen. I was I was in distress over here, a little pain in my stomach. I was about to pipe in and be like, oh, also, Stephen, isn't it isn't the official conversation? Well, that's what I heard.
01:53:42
Speaker
I don't know where I would, I don't know where I heard that. Um, I don't know. It's probably just ringing in my ears again. Um, I wish, I wish that this were a visual, like a video podcast as well, because it's just so far, like Tucker Tucker's room. Steven looks like Tim Heidecker right now. And I'll take it. And then like, Hey, yeah. And Brett just looks bemused the whole time and waste 15 minutes between speaking.
01:54:11
Speaker
He's our patient overlord. He is. He really is just boundless patience. Hats off to you, man. He has to put up with us. Yeah. I have to be.
01:54:26
Speaker
Gotta be the cool little center of the earth, man. He does not have any option. We really don't give him one, but he he takes it with a plumb. He's he's a great guy. Great sport. We miss him when he's not here because it's completely untethered when he's not here. I can imagine.
01:54:43
Speaker
And Tucker doesn't have anybody to bounce Ghostbuster 2 quotes off of. That's true. They just smack me right in the face like so much spaghetti. I don't know. I don't know. Anyway. Pink slime. Like so much pink slime. It was right there. Yeah. Sorry, again, for everything. You're not sleeping with her, are you, Brett? It's always the quiet ones.
01:55:13
Speaker
email us this in French pod at gmail.com. We will read your comments on the air speaking of things will read on the air swing on over to Apple podcast Spotify wherever you get your podcast, leave us a nice five star rating and review. And we will read those on the podcast as well haven't gotten any for a little while shame on you all fix it.
01:55:33
Speaker
and we'll read your stuff on the air. I am your host, Steven Foxworthy. You can find me on Instagram, Letterboxed, and what's the third one? Blue Sky at Chewy Walrus. And you can also buy my new book that my partner and I wrote together called Check In, Check Out. It's my first novel. It's available for e-reader and paperback at
01:56:01
Speaker
on Amazon dot com. So, yeah, check that out. Brett, what about you? Where were you on socials these days or are you? Yeah, I'm continuing my fuck social media campaign. Respect. I mean, I posted. I love them for you. Yeah. On Instagram the other day, just because I thought it was cool. Did I like it, Brett? You did. Did I like it live on the air when we were recording? What are we watching? You did.
01:56:27
Speaker
I think I did. Yeah, I remember that. I do remember that because we had the same conversation. I was like, wait, I didn't see it. I need to like it right now. But in general, I really don't use Instagram. I mean, that post got like a whole five likes. So and he usually gets more. So my campaign to just talk social media continues. You can find me on letterbox, though. Brett, what is your favorite point of entry on on social media?
01:56:58
Speaker
Don't know how to answer that. Sorry. No comment. You know what? That's the right answer. Yeah, but you can find me on Letterboxd. It's us, underscore Warlock. Right on. Tucker, what about you?
01:57:16
Speaker
As always, you can find me on YouTube's and Instagram's at ice 909. That's I C E N I N E the number zero and the number nine. Uh, I'm also on Instagram as tuck mugs. That's tuck underscore mugs. We've been taking a bit of a break again. You know, we do this where there's like a, a, a, a vomit of content for like maybe two weeks.
01:57:43
Speaker
And then we kind of go radio silence for a while. That's just how we prefer to do it. Look, the team likes to, you know, get together and like in kind of bounce ideas off each other and stuff. And it's a bunch of ideas all at once. So like we'll have a bunch of stuff done all at once and then there'll be a while while, you know, we're in the kitchen cooking that new shit.
01:58:04
Speaker
So right now we're cooking that new shit. Stay tuned on tuck mugs because we've got, we've got some shit. It's feast or famine really. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you just, it's nice because like you've almost forget about tuck mugs and then like it pops upon your feet and you're like, Oh fuck. Yeah. It's tuck mugs. Yeah. My day's like a hundred percent better now. Yeah. And when, when the thing we're percolating finishes percolating, we'll pour it in a mug and take a picture of it and put it on the internet. So if there were too much tuck mugs, it wouldn't be as special. It would get boring.
01:58:33
Speaker
I am. But also when the guest mugs. I am so lost. It's also like when when Prime puts out the whole series at once, it's like, what are you doing, man? People don't have willpower. You're ruining the show for them. It's the same thing. We like to kind of stutter it, like keep let people digest the content we have before we move on to something new. You know, Tucker's pretty much just promoting right now. Edging. Edging. Yes. Yes. It took.
01:59:03
Speaker
It took a long time for someone to figure out that that's what Tuckmugs was about. But now that you know, go to Tuckmugs at Tuck underscore mugs on Instagram and join the fastest growing.
01:59:16
Speaker
mug community on it. Edging community. Oh, yes. Yes. There's a mug on there that just says edging and then it has like a like the the the emoji that people use for that. You know what I mean? And then but but like xed out like Ghostbusters emoji for that. Is there an emoji for that? The squirt emoji, dude. There's an emoji for everything. There's an emoji for everything. What do you think the eggplant is?
01:59:46
Speaker
Well, I know what that is, but like, I feel like we could have done better than the squirt emoji. I mean, it's it's not a here to their straight up tuck underscore mugs. You try to look at some mugs, you try to straight up see some glasses, maybe like if you're lucky, you might see a shot glass. You don't know. And is there coffee in the mug most of the time, but sometimes it's motherfucking soup.
02:00:11
Speaker
So head on down to tuck mugs. That's selling it very well. Like people love their mugs. People love their glasses. They love that. There's always usually a story about the best ones. That's true. And that's where we showcase those. You take a picture of your favorite mug or your favorite class. Tell us a little story about how you acquired it. What's inside of it. Maybe you're a coffee drinker and you want to promote a coffee company. Okay. Yeah, sure. I thought it sounded to me like Tucker was just hawking mugs.
02:00:39
Speaker
No, I'm not selling any mugs. No mugs will be sold. We got to pay some bills, guys. Go to TuckMugs.com. That's why I needed to clarify. No, I just I want to spread the good word because it's just kind of a good natured wholesome sort of thing. And like a lot of people be straight up doom scrolling and shit. And like maybe maybe you want to check out some TuckMugs where we're just kind of chilling out and looking at some mugs and talking about, A, how we got them like interesting origin stories and B, what the fuck is inside of them?
02:01:08
Speaker
at the time the photo was taken. And it's not limited to mugs. It can be, again, glassware, bottles. Anything that's cool and has a fun story will accept. Anything you can drink out of, I think, is going to be kind of the rule. And guest mugs are also accepted. Just send those. Send us a guest mug, Noah. And your story behind your mug, you can do it on Instagram. Just follow TuckMugs and just drop us a line. Someone will read it.
02:01:36
Speaker
Yeah. You can send us an email as well. That works too. To disenfranchpod at gmail.com. Instagram and it's just called tuck mugs. Tuck underscore mugs. Yes. And if you're going right now, then that last five minutes was worth it. That's the only reason I went on so far about it is because you weren't as interested in it as I wanted you to be until now.
02:02:01
Speaker
Well, until I gave him the one minute spiel about what it's really about. Thank you, Brett. Maybe Brett should promote tuck mugs from now on about this. The assist and the hook. Let me tell you this. I typed in tuck and then underscore. It's the first friggin thing that comes up. Hell yeah. I mean, we got we got like, I don't know, like twenty five dollars. It's kind of a big deal. Yes, you have thirty three now.
02:02:28
Speaker
What the fuck? Oh, let's pop it off and tuck mugs. Oh, shit. I'm going to start paying my staff more. So, yes, even you're going to raise second and see how many of those are. So I just I just follow it and then take a photo of my mug and a message it to you. And then tell us tell us how you got it, where you got it. What's in life?
02:02:50
Speaker
Look at a couple look at a couple of posts and kind of get the idea of the format. It's pretty simple. After a couple of posts, you'd be like, OK, I go with this format is and I'll send us a photo of the mug and, you know, write us a bit of a description of it or origin story and then what's in it at the time you took the photo. I see. Bada bing, bada boo. I drink a lot of tea. Hell, we haven't had any tea yet. You will be our first. You will pop our tea cherry. That's disgusting. What's your what's your what's your favorite entry point on tea, Noah?
02:03:20
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I would say the entry point for tea, go with Picard's favorite and go just Earl Grey. I can dig. I like the hot. It's a real gateway to the shit. I see. You know, you've arrived when you're when you're sucking back your bamata, like it's going out of style. There you go. That's my preferred. But I'm a lapsing soo chong guy. Give me give me that real dark, heavy stuff.
02:03:47
Speaker
Yeah, I also I dig in my chest, probably my favorite green with the rice. Yeah. And and you're listening to Tea Time with Stephen and Noah. I don't drink a whole lot of tea, but when I do, it is during the fall when David's tea has a bunch of pumpkin spice flavors. And that's good old David.
Closing Musings and Editing Styles
02:04:07
Speaker
I saw a big ass bottle of pumpkin spice rum chata at my local liquor store for five bucks, baby.
02:04:14
Speaker
And my partner was like, does Brett need some? And I'm like, I mean, yes. Tell me you got it. The answer to that question is yes. Oh, my God. You love pumpkin spice. I'm the most basic. He is a pumpkin spice freak. He is obsessed with it. He's unhinged. The most basic of bitches is Brett when it comes to.
02:04:39
Speaker
when it comes to pumpkin spice. You like what you like? Who cares what you like? A bottle of pumpkin spice whiskey that is delicious. That's Brett's gateway to whiskey right there is the pumpkin spice whiskey. Because Brett's not a whiskey guy, but it's not really a gateway more so is like just a pit stop on the way to the rum.
02:04:59
Speaker
Oh, I don't know what the last 10 minutes have been, but I know I have enjoyed them. Where do you edit this out? Where do you cut this out? I'm the guy who edits. I am the one who edits. I'm a very liberal editor. If there's still anyone listening, they are like hardcore freaks for this show.
02:05:23
Speaker
Yeah, I disagree. I disagree because the people that are fans, this is kind of what they they come here for. And we have, you know, a certain amount that whether we go above it or or way above it, we I feel like we I have a comfortable I'm pretty sure about my number on how many regular listeners we have. Full blown maniacs. Every damn one of them. Yes. Yeah. And we look we love those dang ass freaks. We love them.
02:05:51
Speaker
We love you and your dang ass freakitude. You know what you're getting when you come to the disenfranchised podcast and could it be edited tighter? Sure. If I had all fucking week to edit an episode, it would sound it would be edited like a Danny Gonzalez video like holy fuck. But your boy only has a couple hours a week to do that. So I kind of make it as a stream of conscious sort of thing, you know, because we take so many tangents and it works for us. It does. We take a lot of tangents. So it kind of works for the format. So it's not.
02:06:21
Speaker
I don't think it's really, I don't know. And if the point of podcasting is really just pretend like you're listening to a conversation between friends, then this is what a conversation with these people sounds like, quite frankly. That was something I noticed when I, I've been, last week I listened to the Lonely Island and Seth Meyers podcast and it was so well, so well edited too. Like there's not, there's not a second wasted in it.
02:06:49
Speaker
But you can tell that it's so well edited. I'm like, man, I wish I wish I could do that for our show. I wish I had the time to do that for our show. But then I was like, well, but then it would kind of lose its charm. Kind of agreed. And at the same time, I'd like to hear their tangents. Yeah. Their tangents probably would be great. Yeah, exactly. As it is. I mean, I took your recommendation, Tucker. I listened to all of it. It was fantastic. Yeah, I've been wanting to start that, too.
02:07:13
Speaker
It's good. Check it out. Like most episodes are between like half an hour to an hour or so. Well, I'm going to check it out and then we can talk about it during the the hot rod podcast because it will be. Yes, because that will be relevant. Yes. Relevant. That would be cool beans. Cool. Cool. Cool beans. Cool. Cool beans. Stephen doesn't get this reference. Cool. But you're going to.
02:07:40
Speaker
beans? I don't know. Anyway, this has been the Annihilation episode of the disenfranchised podcast. I've been your host, Steven Foxworthy, for my co host, Brett Wright, Tucker, and our very special guest, Noah East. Until next time, I'm really just a bear in the middle of the woods screaming help me in a human voice. Won't somebody please for the love of God help me? Well, you guys, I haven't really been interested in men before, but I think I might
02:08:09
Speaker
I might give it, give men a shot.