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Square Eyes Surprise - Ring & I Saw the TV Glow
33 Plays2 months ago
My mom always told me watching too much TV was bad for the eyes. Listening to this podcast is bad for the ears.
Max and Mitch learn are glued to the screens as they battle a Japanese Ghost and then nostalgia for their favourite TV show that came out 20 years ago.
Do you want your fanmail and/or deep and warranted criticism to feature in the next episode? Email us at [email protected]
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Letterboxd:
Mitch: https://letterboxd.com/swagatario/
Max: https://letterboxd.com/USBChicken101/
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/track/all-good-folks/make-it-work
License code: TNWVZKOXJY0OWBZK
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Transcript
Introduction and Spooky Theme
00:00:06
Speaker
Welcome to Blockbuster, the movie review podcast where we haunt your TVs. I'm a haunted videotape titled Mitch. And I'm a smooooky Max. And today we are looking at Ring and I saw the TV glow.
00:00:37
Speaker
a ghost sound as well. Oh, yeah. you will show ah I am a floating video camera. wo hold there spooky i wonder one I wonder what the cinematographers intentions are if they're not there.
Humorous Take on Real-World Scares
00:01:00
Speaker
If the video tape is put into the itself.
00:01:05
Speaker
It takes, um, takes the author is dead to a whole new level. huh Welcome back to the, say welcome back. Welcome back to the Blockbuster podcast. Um, this week, we're looking at spooky television. o And that is things, and things in the TV with a spooky, like, um, like the state of the nation.
00:01:36
Speaker
I mean, so that's pretty that's, that's pretty, that's pretty spooky. The socio-economic state. Um, just overall world politics in general. ah warming yeah ah And like ghosts. Whoa, spooky ghosts. And like a weird moon man. And Buffy, the vampire slave.
00:02:06
Speaker
Um, I'm ready to get into some spooky. I should stop clapping on this podcast. It just peaks my mic and it doesn't come off right. And people don't know where the sounds coming from. I just like clapping. I like the emphasis it provides, but I should stop doing it.
Recap and Spoilers for 'Ring'
00:02:23
Speaker
um yeah let's discuss but Yeah, let's discuss some films. Spoiler warning for Ring. How many of these episodes have we done? and like it how do i like How do I forget how these episodes start every time? i'm sorry I really don't know. Spoiler warnings for Ring and I saw the TV glow.
00:02:53
Speaker
come my god I'm just a mess today. I'm bonking into all my stuff. And I'm really stressed about this read of names as well. like Yeah, you've got you've got a good good one to start with. I mean, the next one's not so bad, but this one is not good. All right. Don't clap. Don't clap. Don't need to clap. It's all good. Keep your hands to yourself. Hands to yourself.
00:03:19
Speaker
ah You know what I forgot to do? I forgot to update when this movie came out. All right, Ring, released in 1998 and directed by Hideo Nakata. It stars the Nakara Matsushimi, Shima, Shima, Matschimi, damn it. I clapped again, crushed on it. All right, I'm gonna take a breather. Just give me two seconds. I'm gonna breathe in and out and we're gonna be okay. All right. ah Breath has power. Power is me. I can do this. I can do this. All right.
00:03:52
Speaker
Ring released in 1998 and directed by Hideo Nakata. It does Nanako Matsushima, Hiroki Sonata, Rikiya Otaka, Miki Nakatiani, Nakatani, Yuko Takeuchi, Hitomi Sato, and Yutaka Matsushiki.
00:04:12
Speaker
but's but shoot Matsushiki. Matsushiki? What do you think? ah me Let me have a look. You know what? It doesn't matter. um Max, can you please utilize your yeah ESP to provide me a synopsis of this film? Sorry, I was just looking at it. Oh, I thought you were trying to give me your ESP synopsis. What name were you on it? Utaka Matsushige. So on the right hand side, where it has starring, it's the last one.
00:04:49
Speaker
I assume you're in Wikipedia. No, I mean, um, what a box. No, I'm using Wikipedia. Okay. paid No, please. This is not a good bit. I did a good bit and you've ruined it. Um, Yutaka Matsushige. Matsushige. I said Shigi. I can't speak Japanese, man. I'm not good with Japanese. Why am I, what why am I named man?
00:05:20
Speaker
but here yearss You ah put yourself as name, man. We decided this together. this whole This whole format was decided together. I didn't make one single decision without consulting you about what we were going to do. Yeah, you said, I want to do the directors. And I said, yeah, sure. I never said that.
00:05:41
Speaker
I'm fairly sure you did. It just happened because I'm usually the one who does like the intro part and you do the next bit. ah Ring or Ringo.
00:05:55
Speaker
Ringo, Ringo. I'm not gonna say it like that. I'm not gonna say it.
'Ring': Plot and Cultural Impact
00:06:03
Speaker
Ring.
00:06:05
Speaker
follows the, uh, story of, I, I don't, I don't know the character's name. I'm going to, i mean let me, let me start this again. You got this, I believe in you. After the mysterious death of me, fucking hell dude.
00:06:26
Speaker
it It surprised me. I'm not usually that bad. Your own burp surprised you. I wasn't ready for it, it just came out of nowhere. You know when you don't expect a burp, but it just happens? You ever have that? No. This is amazing. I respect all my burps.
00:06:45
Speaker
Alright, the respect didn't come into it. right I'm sorry, please ESP your summary at me between the joke again because I don't know if we missed it. After her niece mysteriously dies, Reiko Asakawa ah goes on an adventure to discover the mysterious circumstances of which that occurred.
00:07:13
Speaker
this There's a tape, and if you watch the tape, you get a call, and if you get the call, Uh, it tells you that you got, well, it doesn't tell you, but you got seven days till you die. Um, what does it say on the call? It's just saying nothing. or is it There's nothing on the call. They don't say anything. It just calls in the American one. It goes seven days or whatever. Um, and then she try and tries to solve the mystery of why there is a cursed video tape.
00:07:51
Speaker
Um, but not before her son watches the video. So it's to race against time, because of race against time, she also always, always racing against time. There were seven days since she watched the year. Well, cause she watched the video. So she had seven days and then she has to figure out how to say, cause not only she's going to die, but also her son's going to die. So she has to go looking for things. so Um, this movie isn't very scary.
00:08:21
Speaker
It's a little bit old.
00:08:25
Speaker
um
00:08:29
Speaker
I don't know. Max, what did you think? I really appreciate what this movie has done for the popularization of of ah modern and Japanese horror. And I think that there is a lot of movie there are a lot of movies that take direct inspiration from this movie.
00:08:51
Speaker
um that heavily influence the way that they're made and the kind of stories that they tell and really um take a lot out of this movie. But um watching this movie ah over almost 20 years after it came out, ah it does lack a bit of the original ah thrill
00:09:23
Speaker
that I think many people associated with it, um along with the fact that because this movie is so prevalent in popular culture, it's something where you know what's going to happen at the end before the end happens. And a lot of the movie is built up to with the expectation that you don't know what happens. It doesn't work when you know what happens. Yeah, this movie is too popular.
00:09:52
Speaker
It's too, uh, too well known to be as spooky as it once was. I don't think it helped that you, Mr. Manager and I watched it together and did not take it seriously. Is that a good description? I mean, we didn't make fun or you made fun of it.
00:10:21
Speaker
Kind of.
00:10:24
Speaker
um i' sure um sorry I'm trying to think of how to phrase this because like it's not that we didn't want to take this film seriously.
00:10:37
Speaker
No, but I think rather it just ended up being that due to a combination of factors, including um the film's age, it's pacing. um Regular ad breaks. Regular ad breaks, thanks to SBS on demand. It made it very easy to sort of tune out um a little bit.
00:11:00
Speaker
hu um That's not to say we didn't watch the movie in its entirety, we did. What am I saying here? What am I saying? um I don't know either. Are my brains turning off? and don't I'm trying to reboot. Sorry. Yeah, go.
00:11:22
Speaker
and i'm I don't know what's going on with my brain. I live today. I think I feel like brother was just having a bit of a weird day today This is a this is not our best, but we're gonna power on This this movie it's
00:11:36
Speaker
You can see the DNA of a lot of modern horror in it. um I think the one that we kind of pointed out and we're like, Oh, look at that. The most was that the start is ultra ah scream and scream is kind of the backburn of a lot of Western. um I would call it the backbone of a lot of Western American horror. I'd call it that simply because.
00:11:57
Speaker
As by design scream is a reflection and parody of what modern horror is whenever the latest version of it comes out. So, and the fact that this movie has what could be considered a very decent, uh,
00:12:15
Speaker
inspiration for the script Screams classic like a start and that's then being done again and again in other Scream movies because Scream is self-referential once again by design. It's interesting to see like just where things have come from where the evolution um It's always interesting to me to watch a movie that is so embedded into the zeitgeist of pop culture. I think that was a tautology kind of, but um it's just it's always it's always interesting to see, like, I guess a classic example would be knowing about Pulp Fiction for years, hearing about its influence and then finally watching it and then going,
00:13:01
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Like I can see like the cultural impact it's had. But beyond that, I don't I don't know. Like it's hard to talk about because I feel like we're missing a lot of context that this movie had and why it was so brilliant at the time. And we as young 20 year olds in the 2024 have had 20 years of.
00:13:26
Speaker
um development and evolution before arriving at the point where we've gone back 20 or so years backwards to view a film that now is at a date just in kind of every way possible even though like you can see it's you can see good stuff in it, but it's just you can kind of find everything it did better somewhere else. That isn't to say that that's it's this movie's fault. I think that's just kind of the context we live in there and what you and I watched it in. Yeah, I think like ah ti thatic to that point, a lot of the movie comes off as a bit cheesy.
00:14:06
Speaker
Um, yeah. And we sort of get, um, like moments specifically, I'm thinking of, um, all the stuff with the ESP, um, where, where the, yeah, the, the ex-husband who's with them for a fair chunk of the movie, um, has ESP for some reason. and Um, it's not really ever explained and we were sort of,
00:14:31
Speaker
sitting there going. We were unsure if it was him as well. as yeah what What does it mean? How is this related? We only found out. We only found out it was him through a Christian review of the film on YouTube later because we wanted to figure out what the ending of the film meant. Exactly. But then we didn't understand. We'll get to that. But um yeah, we only kind of got we had we had it confirmed by outside third party sources.
00:14:58
Speaker
Yeah, it's one of those things where it sort of just felt like it was a weird like tack on onto the onto the ah story. It didn't really feel like it was built in, but then
Comparisons of 'Ring' with Modern Horror
00:15:10
Speaker
at the same time, it's like we're ignoring the the context in which the film was was made. and um Like, sort of, there's a lot of self-reference to Japanese um culture in in the film that we obviously have not had a lot of experience with. um And as a result, that part of that gets lost on us, and especially so given the age of the movie.
00:15:44
Speaker
um But yeah, at the same time, we can sort of see, you can so sort of see the core ideas that it was developing, and and what that's gone on to um ah spawn out of that and and what that's gone on to influence. um And I think that really is is the the
00:16:12
Speaker
true sort of credit to this movie is is that um even if it doesn't necessarily stand up, hold up to the same standards that it it's had such a huge cultural impact. And um it's something that ah most people know about, even if they haven't watched it. um Most people have seen something that was directly influenced by it. um but most people have interacted with some form of um ah some form of this movie in one way or another, um just by existing and consuming media. um And that's really hard for for a film to do for any piece of media to become so like ingrained in sort of popular culture that it
00:17:10
Speaker
uh, become a sort of a keystone, um, that people refer back to over and over again. Um, and yeah, as you're saying, it's, it's become one of these like hallmarks of, of contemporary horror. Um, and, uh, really was a pretty early example of, um, the, not like I don't want to say like early example, the use of technology because that's been a trope in horror for since forever. um But I think it is one of the earliest examples of like, electronic technology being um ah like a vector for um I guess.
00:17:57
Speaker
um horror as a medium and when we go and when we think about things like um like classical ah yeah classic modern horror, so 70s and 80s, Friday the 13th, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, they're sort of framed through this lens of of the of the um like the technology of the time. And I think this film does a really interesting job at like framing itself through the technologies directly, rather than through like ah the fact that
00:18:40
Speaker
It is, that's how it's being shown is that you're, you're watching it on a, on a video and a movie scene, but more likely you're watching it on a video tape or a DVD. And, um, you might be watching it on an old TV that's, that's static key. And part of that, um, plays into that. And I think that's one of the things I really enjoyed about this movie is it used the idea of the, of the video cassette and the limitations of that to great effect. And I think.
00:19:09
Speaker
the fact that it was really um
00:19:14
Speaker
Sorry, I'm forgetting to breathe. um ah It was really, it put a lot of effort into into like using the idea of fidelity or or resolution as a limitation on on a video cassette where you can't really see what's going on um because that's that's just the way, um that's just the a limitation of of the of the VCR.
00:19:41
Speaker
um it sort of adds to that sense of dread that movies trying to develop. um And like the the knowing that something's out there or knowing that something's wrong without being able to fully identify what it is, is normally one of the scariest things that um you can do it in a piece of media like this is try and create something that that is known but unknown. And I think the i think this movie uses um the video cassette, the the the tape as a really useful, really interesting device in achieving this. And I think
00:20:28
Speaker
that what that's done as well has it's a allowed us to sort of reframe, especially some of earlier pieces of horror media, yeah like the ones I mentioned before, through that idea of um this sort of low fidelity or low resolution crackly image um and the sort of lack of clarity that comes with it and the way that that adds to its adds to its um sort of, uh, yeah, suspense or dread. Yeah. It's we both cough at the same time. That's cute. We're just going back to kind of a lot of things you said. I'm going to be real. I, you said a lot and I was like, Oh, that's something I can talk about. And I forgot. And I was like, Oh, I forgot. Um, I do think there's just some interesting stuff in this movie that, um,
00:21:27
Speaker
but ofly brain today it's Okay. I'm, I'm also struggling. I'm going like, why can't they breathe normally?
00:21:35
Speaker
like oh i live in brain Kind of stuck out. That is not directly connected to the last thing you said. So sorry about that. Um, So the conversation is going to be weird, but the one the something you said that I thought was really interesting is like just kind of like where it is in how you can see the the threads of this in other modern horrors. And one thing I actually, I was really reminded of while watching this was the movie It Followers, which is I don't know if you've seen that. Do you care if I spoil it? It's all good. I'm going to spoil it a little bit. I won't spoil the whole thing just like a little bit, but basically it's about a demon that will walk after you unendingly forever and it will it can only go as fast as walking so you can run away from it and like you can outrun it, but it's relentless and it will continuously chase you and like it's the snail, but
00:22:30
Speaker
It's the snail. No, it actually is. You die. It is. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. It's the snail. And the way you get rid of it, though, is you have to have sex with someone and it passes it on to the next person. And so it's now a guard for like STD and stuff like that. um ah But it's very.
00:22:48
Speaker
familiar with this one, that like the way to get rid of the curse in this movie is by making a copying tape and showing it to someone else within the seven day period that you have it. And so there's just the idea of passing the curse on and ah TVs being so speaking to you. like um My dad thought we were going to be doing poltergeist when I said spooky TVs. And and I don't know when poltergeist came out, but I'll assume it's after this movie. When did poltergeist come out?
00:23:17
Speaker
you know whole guys Oh no, that was 1982. So big bad, big wrong, big wrong by Mitch. Not correct. ah That's awkward. um Ignore that last point. ah Didn't happen. But yeah in general though, it's just, yeah, it's It's hard to think on the fly right now other places, but you can you can see strands of its DNA in... Oh, I guess like spooky bu he girls with spooky hair. That's like a common thing. I don't know. That's probably happened beforehand, right? Like that wasn't just this movie.
00:24:01
Speaker
this very right ky had spooky hair it was a spooky gary had spooky girl um yeah I think it really, what it does a lot of it is it captures this idea of the sort of fear that people had around television. I think we see a lot of that reflected the in um Uh, more recently, like in internet or in like AI, um, we're seeing movies come out now. Um, I'm thinking of like afraid that, um, AI afraid, AI afraid. F AI. I don't really know how it's spelled. That's like something like that, isn't it? It's just afraid. It's afraid, but the AI is like stylized.
00:24:48
Speaker
Oh, of course. Which Disney Channel did years ago with Smart House, right? Yeah, Disney Channel did like a bajillion years ago, and then The Simpsons and The Nightmare, The Treehouse of Heart episode, when they have the same premise. But and that's not the point. The point is- When it's like Disney now, right? um the We have this like tendency with Harley to like,
00:25:15
Speaker
look at technology as ah like this idea that it's something sort of foreign and unknown, and and this has sort of been a staple of the horror genre since its in like since its conception. um If you look at something like uh, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, um, which is widely considered to be one of the first pieces of horror media, if not the first piece, um, horror explicitly sci-fi times fiction. Um, there's been horror before it, but so sci-fi so there was horror before it, but yeah something like Frankenstein, which was the first piece of science fiction media, um, yeah was deeply rooted in, in these ideas so of, um,
00:26:00
Speaker
of, uh, spooky experiments, technology experiments and science and technology. And, yeah um, part of the reason that the pieces of media like that are so successful is because they directly relate to this idea of like,
00:26:16
Speaker
the
Desensitization to Horror Films
00:26:17
Speaker
fear of progress in a way. And I think that movies like The Ring that looked at the way that we interacted with television, the way that, you know, people sharing like tapes with each other. What's on the tapes? Like how are you going to restrict what your kids are going to watch? And there's like, he me there's like these sort of ideas throughout the film where, um,
00:26:42
Speaker
there's sort of like fear that you're unable to um look after to your children adequately because they're they're having access to these ah new technologies, yeah um which is against something. They porn and curse tapes behind your back without you mowing, and then you don't want to see them from curses.
00:27:04
Speaker
um But that's like a sentiment that that but is sort of ongoing. And we see um that like reflected in newer movies that rely on this idea of the progress progress of technology. And I think this, I think Ring really um taps into that. ah taps into the Luddite in all of us.
00:27:29
Speaker
um And
00:27:34
Speaker
Yeah. It's, it's tricky because there's so much of this movie that I can see being scary to a different audience that hasn't been ah exposed to just all the stuff that we've been exposed to as first of all, we, you and I, this is actually something that kind of came up when we went and saw the second movie, when we saw, I saw the TV glow as well. Like you and I watch so much, so many movies that there's a possibility that we've been desensitized to just other, like the other world that I know that a movie, like we because were watching with our friend who mentioned that he was really engrossed in, I saw the TV glow because I'm like us who just watch films like so many movies, so many movies, especially since you, don' know coming off of like we we distinctly talk about not popcorn. It's true. Uh, like a, like a not sure, like a Dorito. Yeah. So good. Yeah. We do have Doritos. Uh,
00:28:31
Speaker
he was the The friend that we saw the movie with um mentioned that since he he hadn't seen the movie in a while, and so in doing that, he was really engrossed in the world that I saw the TV glare provided.
00:28:44
Speaker
and There was actually that actually got me thinking just that maybe you and I in a way are and we talked about this like at the time when your the friend brought it up you and I not not jaded per se but desensitized to to other to the other world that a movie can bring just because we view so much of it that we don't wallow and we don't We don't let it sink in. We're just like, that was a film I watched. Log it on letterboxed. Next one. Let's go. Come on. Chop, chop. Bring me, bring me my next morsel, please. Like we just, we're constantly gutsing film. I think this is something I want to talk about a little bit more about when we go on to the isolate TV. glo It's more in reference to that, but it just makes me think that in this, with this movie, you and I.
00:29:30
Speaker
are desensitized to a lot of stuff, especially since we do a podcast where we just, we we hyper-fixate on a specific thing for like a week and then just move on to the next thing. Like two weeks ago, we hyper-fixated on aliens. Therefore, just aliens, right now to me, aliens is like, it's aliens, whatever, man. I know what an alien is. I i'm not like i don't care. like And it's like, I don't enjoy this. And I don't, and and like, I want to keep doing this. I'm not saying, this is me quitting. By the way, guys, I'm quitting this episode. This is my last episode, nah.
00:30:00
Speaker
i like that' I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with what we're doing I just believe that there's ah there's there's something I think we should start taking to count the fact that you and I ingest more film than the average person does and therefore We have both a greater perspective maybe on the format that people have but we also don't have perhaps the reverence to specific films that other people do like to us going to the cinema is a weekly
00:30:33
Speaker
Chaw, not a bad Chaw or anything like that. It's not something bad or anything, but like I guess Chaw comes with the wrong connotation. Chaw's probably not the right word. short from the right yeah it's yeah it's a week It's a weekly ritual for us though, like something we do every week, but for other people, going to the cinema is an event and it's something you do when you only are super interested in something and it's only like when you're like, this is something I absolutely want or need to do, or slash when your kids are being really frustrating and you want to just get them to watch a group for like two hours.
00:31:00
Speaker
So like, it's just something that's interesting. And so that what what my point is, because I'm, I'm Yattan, is that this movie is there the mixture of once again, we are a modern audience that has seen a lot and has like watched where the genre has come from, from this point of origin. And, you know, we have we've seen where the the genre wins and where films went. But we also just ingest a lot and maybe like there's just a level of this movie can't get through the barrier that we now have because of how much we ingest. And I think that's, like a lot I don't think that's something something that even this movie is specific to. I think that's just something that in general is something we have with film. Like it's hard for you and I talk a lot about how no movie really gets five stars on our first viewing.
00:31:51
Speaker
And I think that's a symptom of the fact that you and I just watch so much that we can't give, we can't decide something is perfect until we watch it again and go, oh, this actually did stick with me just because we watched so much that we're just, yeah, were I'm saying the same thing over and over again now. I just think that's interesting. And I think that is something to take into account.
00:32:11
Speaker
Yeah, I was just like, the other thing I wanted to note, just like, in terms of that, and in terms of like the way that Ring has really just been a part of, um like just sort of a global, not global, but like sort of an ethos of of a lot of horror cinema. I remember like, not knowing what Ring was in, I reckon it would have been early high school. And we had, a we were doing you know some class on like,
00:32:42
Speaker
horror media or something. I think it might have been in year seven or year eight. That sounds fun. It was like some elective thing. It was it was pretty cool. Get electives in year seven? Yeah, we I went to a weird school where we did electives in year seven. I didn't get an elective until year nine and I got like maybe two a semester.
00:33:01
Speaker
And, um, I remember being like, we got told a ah very brief synopsis of, of ring and the, um, being like the big, uh, sort of event at the end of the movie, which is that, um, Sadako, the, the ghost comes out of the TV, um, and, and kills the person watching the tape. Um,
00:33:28
Speaker
the husband in this case the husband oh wait what what oh well but when the tape is watched oh i see what you're saying are okay sorry the actual events i think the actual events of the film and so i was confused why you're being i was confused why you're being like weird about like it we've spoiled the movie like we can we can say the husband died it's fine um and like i remember like but i think we got shown like this prank but um You'll be able to find it on YouTube where i think i know this someone's like in a department store and they like crawl out of a TV um in the same way that like you see in um Ring and like that being scary for like the people in the department store because obviously that's You're in the department store, it's not a movie. ah that's my life Um, but I think like thinking back to how I felt about it when I was in, when I was younger, it was a much more like scary sort of concept. And now that I'm not only older and but as you said, more engaged and more, um,
00:34:40
Speaker
well we regular in my cinema viewing, um, It's ah it's also just something that like I knew I was waiting the whole time I was waiting the whole movie to go or when does when does she come out of TV? a That was like and the first point that we would we were like, is it just like in the American one where she comes out of the TV? Like we thought we just didn't happen in the Japanese one. We thought it'd become an American Americanized thing. Yeah. And and the fact that yeah is like, it's not the very last scene, but it's a penultimate scene. It's the big, it's the big spook, the big spook at the end.
00:35:12
Speaker
um But it's sort of like a it's not it's not quite a <unk>s all the climax of the film, it's the um sort of almost an epilogue and the the climax of the film is is is in fact them inside the well where they're trying to um break Sadako's curse ah before time runs out. um by giving her skeleton a snug like giving a skeleton a cuddle yeah And I think like the fact that, i at least for me, I was sitting there going like, well,
00:35:53
Speaker
This isn't how they die. yeah This isn't how no anyone dies in this movie. Not because I've watched the movie before, but just because I knew that the ring was about the girl who comes out of the TV and kills you. iconography yeah I was just waiting for the girl to come out of the TV and kill someone. and And the fact that that doesn't happen until right at the very end, sort of like I think my expectations of what I wanted this or needed this movie to be just didn't match up with what this movie actually is. um yeah and Honestly, I think the best way to watch this is having no idea what this movie is about because um the more you know, the less scary it is. um and That's just horror in general though. It's just horror cards from the unknown.
00:36:44
Speaker
and like Yes, absolutely. um I think this in particular, just because of its prevalence, is something like, if you'd shown this to me when I was 13, I think I would have been terrified. probably spooked too, yeah. And not just because I was 13, but because i the whole concept was, is novel, I think. I wouldn't, I wouldn't, yeah, we you and I, I think both could agree that we wouldn't have known at that age, like what, what, it that it's the, we would have known that the videotape does something because that's explained to us pretty early on. But beyond that, we'd be like, but like, what actually happens? Like what happens when so you watch the videotape? Yeah. it's It's, it's, it's more, you're more reliant on what the film is telling you rather than what your experiences are outside of that. The video tape makes a woman climb out the TV and kill you.
00:37:35
Speaker
Younger us would be like. What does it do? What does the videotape do? What is it? Which actually, I have a question that and this might be kind of topic for you a little bit, but how did the people in the car die? Did they have a TV in the car? and ah yeah I was thinking about this. I was like, yeah, I was sort of not sure because they were like, oh, maybe they had like a heart attack or something. But yeah isn't the whole thing that like Sartaker can just like kill people through psychic powers? So maybe she's just like psychic powered them to death.
00:38:08
Speaker
So did they not have to watch her climb out of something? Like she, they got the easier death because they weren't near a TV. Maybe. do I don't know. Or can she like format of reflections of some sort or something? Like they saw the well in the windscreen or something. She climbed out of the windscreen. i I don't know. And I think a lot, I think a lot of this, a lot of this movie does leave a lot of that sort of like intentionally quite vague. It does.
00:38:35
Speaker
But that's the problem is when, when you, in when you, for me, this is, this is, this is just a me thing. And it's not going to demote points from the movie because of this. Cause I know this is just a me thing. When a film introduces ESP or something like that, I need kind of rules as to who and why, who gets it, why they get it and how it can be used. Like I just, that's just something I need from a film when it introduced ESP. And I understand that.
00:39:03
Speaker
That's kind of missing the point a little bit. like That's just not like what the point of the film is. but does i when they When they were like, oh, he the ex-husband is a psychic, I was like, well, first of all, we didn't know that because we couldn't figure it out because it was confusing. But then second of all, we found out that Sadako and her mother, Shizuko, I believe they're telling me. Yeah, that sounds right. They're both also psychic slash have ESP.
00:39:32
Speaker
It's just like, it's just hard for me to go, yeah, this is something that can happen in the world. Like this is like, you yeah. i'm not um my immediate like thought when they so when they introduced the ESP stuff was, um, how they deal with ESP in, um, a satanic, um, in, in Phoenix, right? I did not know that. I was, right this insane like I don't want to play it because it looks like a visual novel. It is a visual novel.
00:40:08
Speaker
that I'm not playing it. But it's insane. Anyway, they it's sort of just this thing that's there. um And I just like, I came to the assumption and I i genuinely don't know if this is based in any sort of reality. But my understanding from playing Ace of is completely different uncon unconnected ah franchise unconnected franchise. The only connection it holds is that it's Japanese. Yeah. i They have both have ESP in it. Well, I mean, that was implied, but yeah. The two connections that they have ESP in it, which is not a connection and the other connections that they're Japanese, which is once again, not a connection.
00:40:48
Speaker
um but It seemed like there's there's this i more of an idea of like people or um yeah people having like spiritual like psychic powers in Japanese media um than we do in Western media. it's it's um like it's less of an event fun it's like less of an event it's just like characters just can do that yeah so so like us who are like a whole film is dedicated to a character who would have it like Carrie or other yeah so characters i but i think i think i have a feeling and again
00:41:24
Speaker
I'm more than willing to be proven wrong, but it seems to me that like the expectations around like what powers people can have in a vaguely fantastical piece of media is is like psychic powers is much more un common than you would just find in in Western media where psychic powers tend to be the reserved for the incredibly powerful and, um, uh, explained through excruciating detail about why they can have it and how they do it. And, um, people with like sucking powers in Western media often are like keys to like the story and ah actors like main characters or very important character guiding characters. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like the ones that come to mind are like professor X from X-men. Oh, I mean, like in horror, I'm thinking of like the insidious franchise, which is like based around those those characters in that they can travel to like the the dead side of the world or whatever. And like they're the main characters. And one of them is like like when her when when one of them dies, it's like a huge loss that like she's not around anymore because she's like this big key to fighting the evil when it happens and stuff like that. But yeah I don't even think it's reserved to horror media. Like I'm like, when I think of like. No, it's not. Yeah. Like, yeah. Like psychic abilities. It's yeah. Characters like professor Professor X meant to be like this super like what is like Omega level mutant. Is he not though? I thought he wasn't. I thought he was only like, I thought he was, I thought he was second highest. I didn't think he was highest highest. Um, am I really looking this up?
00:43:07
Speaker
Yeah, no, please. Cause I just thought, I thought there was like this bit where he was like, people were like, ice man, Omega level, this guy, Omega level, Professor X, not Omega level. Like he's just for some reason, not the highest level mutant or something. He is Professor X and Omega level mutant. Yes. Professor X is an Omega level mutant. He is. But maybe he's also not.
00:43:35
Speaker
Oh, sorry. He's not, he's not no mega level mutant, but he's no mega level threat. He is high alpha class. The majority of the time, but professor, uh, comics are dumb. Anyway, point is, is it like the X-Men, the X-Men subreddit configure it out.
00:43:54
Speaker
It's like he's super powerful. You have characters like 11 in Stranger Things ah yeah that are the main character. I'm trying to think of other characters with like psychic abilities, but it's yeah reserved for the like very like specific integral characters. And we started to see it thrown around a bit here. Um, and I think that's a cultural thing. I, um, my understanding is it's just, it's, it's, it's something that like as a Western audience, we're not expecting, you know, just to be there. Joe Schmoe to have psychic abilities. Yeah. We expect action, action, action, lad or action last to have it or something. But.
00:44:40
Speaker
No, not Joe off the street. They they don't have powers. That's not a thing that happens. i but yeah i think what's I think the problem that I have with the movie is just that what's more interesting is what happened after it, more so than the film itself.
Evolving Perceptions of Horror
00:44:57
Speaker
And that's just not something you can hold against the film, but it is something that does affect the viewing experience, I feel. it's It makes it a bit tricky to judge the qualities of this film.
00:45:08
Speaker
it's it's like It's like looking at an author's first book and seeing all the talent that they had and all the interesting ideas they have, but it's not refined and they haven't had a chance to properly figure out what to do with it. And then looking at their later books and going, Oh, they did so much better here. Therefore their first book is garbage. No, that's not the case. The first book's not garbage. It's just like a first run at a bunch of interesting ideas. And it got refined later over time and practice and seeing how it worked in other ways. So it's just, it's hard to, it's hard to.
00:45:41
Speaker
give properly judge this film upon saying that they're we're gonna give this film a brief judge for email to judge this film I think that's a recurring theme I want to give out for like this week though is that I think It's times like this where i I do feel that it's really arbitrary and kind of silly that we do use a, um, and a number-based system or any type of regrading system simply because with this movie, it's hard. It's like the experience itself wasn't brilliant, but like it's, I have a huge respect for like, what's the, but what came next. And the next one we're going to talk about, I won't go into it, but just once again,
00:46:19
Speaker
I have a huge respect for it as a piece of work, but like my score at the end will not reflect like my respect. On that note, if you're interested in that idea of like um the arbitraryness at which we like we love to write things as people, um John Green ah did a podcast. Not John Green?
00:46:45
Speaker
yeah John Green did a podcast um and then a book called The Anthropocene Reviewed, where he just takes stuff and reviews it on a five-star scale. um and it's ah really It's really great and really well-written. um And it's funny and it's also very, very sweet. um And if you like the idea that ah the, or if you agree with us that maybe the whole idea of just reviewing stuff based on any given person's enjoyment of a thing.
00:47:18
Speaker
is maybe not the best way to analyze its contribution to our existence. um like the cultural band and Then i would i'm just goingnna I'm just going to say go check that out because it's great.
00:47:33
Speaker
But that said, let's give you some reviews. Put more weight on the discussion we have than the number we give. I think it's just something you should take away from the whole podcast as a whole, but specifically this episode. Just listen to what we're saying more than like the silly number we give at the end. Um, and going off of that though, I'm giving this film three wells and a puddle. I gave a ring.
00:48:02
Speaker
You don't have a joke, do you? Ring ring.
00:48:05
Speaker
wait That's two rings and a half. That's two and a half rings on the phone. Cool. It sounds like you cut off. Before you pick it up. Now I realize, yeah. It takes you two and a half rings to pick up. It takes two and a half rings to pick up. Is that a hard rule or is that just like in general? That's just how many times took me to pick up the phone. By the way, I got seven days to live. Oh, you watch the tape?
00:48:29
Speaker
And yeah, I watched the tape. I would absolutely have like, that's the thing. I would have actually watched the tape. Absolutely. You spend so much time going like, who would watch the tape on? Then we ultimately would have watched the tape. I would have absolutely watched that tape. Someone's like, you will die if you watch the tape. I'm like, I'm watching it. I'd get my friends around. It's very much like, you remember in school, it's like, oh, can I play this maze game? It's really easy. You should play this maze game. And then you get maze spooked. Yeah, I remember. Scary maze game. Oh dude, scary maze game. What a time to be alive.
00:49:02
Speaker
Oh my gosh, Max, my TV has turned on. ah Words are appearing on the screen, Max. Can you, can you read them? Um, what do they say? It's in a language I don't understand, but wait, I can hear my phone ring. Hello. Hello. I don't know why I'm actually using my phone. Like I don't, like no one can see this. Uh, hello. Uh,
00:49:28
Speaker
Oh, I have, I i have Max and Mitch mini media to live.
00:49:39
Speaker
I think I had a stroke. I think I've gone first the past two weeks in a row. So I think it's your time to go first. All right. Okay. Um, I'll just give me a moment. Give me a moment.
00:49:55
Speaker
Can I open another bio? You call down the phone when I open another bio. I think I need it. Absolutely. I'm seeing, seeing our listeners a song or something. um go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep now dear listeners take a nap at your job it's not worth your full attention but this podcast is because we reckon it is
00:50:30
Speaker
And we're about to do mini-media. Go to sleep, unless you're listening to the podcast, in which case leave us a review on iTunes or Spotify.
00:50:45
Speaker
Bitch is gonna have so much fun when he is.
00:50:58
Speaker
I've had one beer, yes, but what about second beer? I have a conundrum, Mitchell. Yeah, what's the conundrum? I don't know what's in here from my mini media, and I hadn't thought of it beforehand. Normally, I've just got something to go, and I'm just going like, have I done anything this week? Have you listened to a song? No. Have you listened to a podcast? Only I heard podcasts.
00:51:24
Speaker
You want to review it? I'm not reviewing your own podcast. I think you should. Um, I can just talk really long about my one. I think a song. So you get, that's going to be fun. Um, Wait, am I editing this week? Um, pun. I thought you were editing this week. I was going to ask, can you please edit it this week? Cause this weekend, this week. Okay. Um, what?
00:51:54
Speaker
Have I done this week? I have done cooking. You went to Brewdog with a good friend. I went to Brewdog. I want to review Brewdog. Yeah. All right. am Am I leaving this in or? No, you should probably cut a lot of that out that you should leave make me singing in though. That was fun. Like uncut all of it? No, I think you should put music to it. But I think.
00:52:24
Speaker
um what i do I'll see what I can do. um So this this week, I've been very busy doing things, house stuff, making moves, cleaning up, making moves. That's the difference between me and you. Because while you were sitting around waiting, doing niche, I was out making moves, ah writing stuff for projects.
00:52:52
Speaker
uh don't give that away and i'll believe that i'm i'm allowed to say that i'm allowed to do projects i have to believe the pot ice it acts now it implic implicates me in it yeah i'm no you're right you can think this is the only project that we do we do other things nothing that you can see there single dimensional thing people We'll really worry about them when when that's irrelevant. If they're busy ah i can't with that sort of stuff, I can't tell you about it. But I can tell you about Brewdog.
00:53:30
Speaker
yeah
00:53:33
Speaker
So we went to the cinemas at Pentridge ah um and we caught up a f**k for a drink at the sleep with ah um Mr. Manager and and ah another mutual friend of ours. The friend who mentioned not a previously mentioned friend. Yeah about watching films and stuff.
00:53:55
Speaker
um And we come out for a drink and some dinner at Brewdog at Pantridge. Pantridge is like a little prison that they turned into like an entertainment precinct. It's capitalism.
00:54:09
Speaker
It's claimed to fame. I'd rather it be entertainment precinct than a prison, to be honest. that's fair It's claimed to fame is that it held Ned Kelly for a period of time before he was hung hanged. Hanged. Hanged. It wasn't directly before he was hanged, but they had him before he was hanged. And for a period of time anyway, yeah um despite all of the local breweries in Melbourne going under,
00:54:35
Speaker
ah We went to one called, it's called Brudog and they make beer, which was cool. Um, Dog-based breweries are safe. Cause my dog's also okay. but Dog-based breweries are fine. K9 breweries. Okay.
00:54:50
Speaker
Yeah. Any other query? Watch out. You got on a beer called like Elvis juice or something. I got Elvis juice and I got ah like a pale ale that had guava infused through it as well. It was pretty nice. I feel very fruity. I'm not a very fruity beer person, but I like those ones. I got like a amber ale or something like that. I can't remember. to be honest I had a palmer that was good.
00:55:14
Speaker
I actually don't think I asked you, how was the parma? Well you just told me. The parma was good. I've had a couple of dud parmas at the last few places I've been to, so I was pretty happy to get a decent parma. What makes a good parma for you? I think it's going to be crunchy. The crumbs are going to be crunchy, because if the sauce goes on too early, or you've cooked it and then you reheated it, then the crumbs aren't crunchy. That's no good.
00:55:40
Speaker
So that's one, cru crunchy crumbs. It's going to have, the chicken's not going to be dry. Dry chicken bad. Moist chicken. Got it. All right. And the sauce and the cheese are going to have a good, good flavor. If it's just like plain, like boring tomato sauce and there's no flavor in it, then I might as well eat a chicken schnitzel.
00:56:04
Speaker
So I want the sauce. Was there any ham on it or was it just cheese and sauce? No, there wasn't any ham, which is normally, normally you have the the ham on it as well. Gotta ask, like is a ham a make or break for you? See, I think a lot of the time, like there's not enough ham for me to care.
00:56:22
Speaker
Like the handle often there, it sort of feels like an afterthought. I'd rather you get sauce and cheese, right? Than the ham. It's sort of a powered but by the other flavors that the ham kind of means nothing. Yeah. I get you. Yeah. Like the perfect palmer has ham. Yeah. I don't think a good palmer has to have ham. On a scale from um ah one to five in an arbitrary fashion to fit the pod. How good was this palmer? Um, I would rate this palmer like a,
00:56:55
Speaker
like a four, four crumbs out of five.
00:57:04
Speaker
It was pretty good. um I was pretty happy with it. Yeah. No, it sounds great. It wasn't like super expensive as well. Like there there's um some, there's some farmers that you get, they charge you like close to $40 for a farmer. Where you going for farmers?
00:57:19
Speaker
fancy paul but trivia trivia pubs You go to trivia quite a bit. yeah Yeah, trivia pubs are expensive, man. They are expensive. It's so rude. Yeah, I don't know. That's probably me the most exciting thing that's happened to me. This is really sad. Yeah, it is a bit sad. I'm trying to think what else I've done.
00:57:47
Speaker
I am sad and I do no things.
00:57:51
Speaker
Um, what else did I do? I went to the shops yesterday. Talk about that right now. Oh, cause it was a dildo shop. It was a dildo shop. No, it was, um, for a thing that I'm working on.
00:58:06
Speaker
I might be able to talk about it later, but I can't talk about it right now. If it's the thing I'm thinking of, you should absolutely mini-media it at a later date. I will mini-media the thing that I am thinking of that I think you might be thinking of. I think we're thinking of the same thing. Does it involve a... Wait, I can just beep it out. I'll beep it out in post. I'm going to say it. You can even just cut it out. But if I beep it out, the mystery remains. Right, okay.
00:58:35
Speaker
and there's a and Yes. Cool. That's getting me beeped. Yeah. It's kind of just tricky. Cause like, I'm trying to think of the last, when we recorded, it was Tuesday last week to work. We didn't, wait we, we, we recorded Wednesday. work And we recorded Wednesday Wednesday and Wednesday. And then Thursday I went to work with you Friday. I went to work, saw you and we watched the ring.
00:59:06
Speaker
Oh yeah, that was fun. You know what you could have reviewed? You know what you could have reviewed? What else did we do on Friday? Oh, we put like a Harry Potter. But you can't review it now, you've already reviewed Grewdog, and this episode's going for way too long. Guys, I'm currently 100%ing all the LEGO games. Harry Potter year 507 is what we're up to at the moment, it's a slog.
00:59:27
Speaker
It's not, I'm losing, I'm losing steam on it, man. This one's not as fun as the others. I think it's good like every now and again. I think the way we've been doing it like every now and again has been all right. Yeah, if we were doing it more often. I had more fun with Pirates of the Caribbean. Okay. Do you think it's because of like how you get the characters?
00:59:52
Speaker
Or is it just like i just the fact that like it feels like a rehash of the first game? I think it's a mixture of I like the separation of levels and hub. like There's a big enough separation there. Also, I like the idea of going on a swashbuckling LEGO adventure is more interesting to me than like the action in the Harry Potter games because for some reason it's the game where they're like you can only kill people if you're a specific character like for some reason they just went and I guess I get it because they want to do like a vodka daver as like a spell that like yeah but also like Harry Potter doesn't kill people
01:00:27
Speaker
Yeah, but it's just like it's just but like Batman doesn't kill people and he beat him and totally kills people in the lager games. Absolutely. he he He turns them into pieces the that he he atomizes them and Liger. I don't know. This is like Liger. There's something more interesting about the adventures, playing out the adventures of.
01:00:50
Speaker
Pirates of the Caribbean is more interesting than playing out the adventures of Harry Potter. That isn't to say, that is not a comment on the quality of either product. It's just, I would rather go on a swashbuckling adventure play like in my hand, I couldn't with a controller, a swashbuckling adventure over going to school. you know You know what, I went to Doncaster, I went to the LEGO store. There's some cool stuff there at the moment. I've gone for way too long on this, brother.
01:01:17
Speaker
I went to the LEGO store, they have like Varian Express. Did you murder someone on it? As a LEGO set. Was this like from the book or just in general the Varian Express? No, just the train. Is that allowed to be called the Varian Express anymore? I mean, it's probably still called Varian Express. It just feels a bit problematic. They had like the Notre Dame set that looks really cool.
01:01:41
Speaker
um Umm... Sonic. Sonic? Sonic 3 movie trailer dropped. Have you watched it yet? No. I haven't watched the first two movies either. Keanu Reeves' Shadow. I know. It's pretty cool. What did you do this week, Mitch? Given that I didn't like absolute shit all.
01:02:04
Speaker
I started and finished the new Terminator anime, Terminator Zero. It's all right. um it's For some reason going into it, I thought this was gonna be like, this is gonna be like a new Terminator story. It's gonna be like this weird new thing. It's it's actually just an eight episode long Terminator movie. Like it's the same thing that we've seen before. But in Japan,
01:02:33
Speaker
ah It's fun. It's fine. If you like Terminator, you'll like this. um It's this.
01:02:42
Speaker
My biggest complaint makes look makes me look like a bigot, which is frustrating. But I feel like I'm going to try and express it without looking like a dick, but i might it might come off wrong. But please just know it's not coming from a place of hate. It's just frustrating. This is making it sound worse, I promise. so Basically, with every Terminator film, there's going to be like the Terminator that comes back from the past and a Resistance fighter from the future also comes back with it, but not like whatever.
01:03:12
Speaker
the resistance fighter in this iteration for some reason could go toe to toe with a terminator like fight 1v1 like straight up just like hand-to-hand combat fight a terminator and that's just not something that anyone who isn't either a cyborg or another terminator has been able to do before and just made this tornado look exceedingly weak and the reason why it makes me look like a bigot is because the resistance fighter is not a male um but it that's not my problem my problem is just that it's like
01:03:49
Speaker
every other piece of Terminator media, if you want to fight a Terminator one on one, like hand to hand combat, you've had to be ah so somewhat mechanical yourself to be able to go like to scale up with it. But for some reason, this freedom fighter Resistance member Japan, but it's just like frustrating because in the show There's a part where the terminator steps out in front of a car and stops like a car on a freeway So that let's let's assume at lowest it was going 60 kilometers an hour That's the lowest that car should have been going by the way Like I assume it' was probably going fast in that it stepped out in front of a car and stopped a car Like it stopped the car straight up like the car crashed into it and the terminator didn't move the car stopped
01:04:34
Speaker
There's then a scene later on where she manages to push it. 60,000 newtons of force. It's a lot of force. A lot of, like, I don't want to go into that. Cause if a car is like one ton. Yeah. kind That's like 60,000 newtons of force. Yeah. It's a lot of force.
01:04:56
Speaker
It takes a lot less than that to push it for the for her to push it just down an elevator shaft. sixty thousand and one units of newtens of force but it's like it My other problem is that there's a lot of characters who know that this is a Terminator and know that it's like this thing that can and will just crush your head with one hand and has done so previously in the show, like has just crushed people's heads with one hand. And they're like, you know what? The best way to engage with this thing is rugby tackle it. Just just tackle it. It's just silly. But to me, it's silly. It's just my one problem is like that one thing. It's just it it it means that the Terminator is no longer scary because it means that any basically
01:05:41
Speaker
if you're quick enough you can fight a terminator and even then you don't have to be that quick because it will just catch you but if you like smack it enough which shouldn't change anything because it's a robot you can not get got it just made it like less needed yeah it's just frustrating because It just, it's inconsistent is basically it, it meant that the terminator it's also the terminator for some reason couldn't shoot properly. Like it kept missing. Like I had a Gatling gun and just like missed the main character a bunch. Like.
01:06:15
Speaker
It's this thing I have with like action movies in general where it's like, give us reasons why they miss. Like have, give the main character cover. Don't put the main character in a hallway, a straight hallway, and then have the bad guys miss their shots. Especially when the bad guy is a killer robot. Especially when the bad guy is a killer robot and should have perfect game.
01:06:36
Speaker
it doesn't make sense to me. And it's frustrating. It's this is not this is not something that is specific to this movie. ah This cherry. It's just something in general. Give us reasons why that the bad guys missed instead of just being like the the the the the main character ran real good. And it's just yeah. But it's fun, though. Like I said, it's fun.
01:07:04
Speaker
If you like Terminator, you'll like this pretty much. I spoke too long about it. Oh, you, you spoke too long about your thing. I just feel like I rant now whenever I do my mini medias. It's like, it's like, I want to have a conversation with you, but I don't know how to get you involved in it. and I mean, it's tricky when I also haven't seen it. So. Yeah. And I feel like whenever I try and make a conversation of your things, I'm just interrupting you. So like, I don't know.
01:07:36
Speaker
I saw the TV glare. You did? But also I watched a movie called I saw the TV glare. Well, TV you just kind of do that, don't they? like Yeah, I guess they do. Yeah, they do emit light. It'd be scary if you said I saw the TV smile, or I saw the TV oscillate.
01:07:59
Speaker
That TV is also oscillate. That's pretty regular. but like physically oscillate. I saw the TV get up and walk out of my lounge room. So that reference to always, I'm not always sunny, I'm cloudy with a chance of meatballs, the TV with legs. It's not, but it could be. It is if you try hard enough. ah Released in 2024 and directed by Jane Schunbrunn.
01:08:26
Speaker
I believe is how our name is pronounced. Their name is pronounced. um It stars Justice Smith, Bridget Lundy Payne, Helena Howard, Lindsay Jordan, Connor O'Malley, Emma Portner, Ian Foreman, Fred Durst, and Danielle Deadwiler. Max, can you glow up a summary for me? I sure can.
01:08:49
Speaker
um
01:08:51
Speaker
I always do this thing where I forget to look up the like characters names and... um I think it's fun because then you have to like kind of describe the character. So there's this one character that's played by Justice Smith and they like... ah um
01:09:13
Speaker
um In 1996, Owen ah discovers this show called The Pink Opaque, ah which is a sort of monster of the week show in the style of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in which two people from on the other sides of the county have to solve supernatural occurrences and defeat the mysterious Mr.
01:09:49
Speaker
melan Melancholy. You're welcome. um And in doing so, he, um, befriends. Um, question mark. He gets to know real well a character called Maddie who, uh, disappears, uh, at a point in the movie. Uh, is we then skip ahead a whole bunch. Um, yeah but look, there's a lot of them like sitting and watching the TV.
01:10:25
Speaker
which is cool. And then we skip ahead a bunch and then we find out that Maddie, who reappears, says that she was in the Te Vecher and this world is actually a implanted memory caused by Mr. Melancholy and his lunar juice, and actually they're slowly suffocating, buried alive in the ground. um And Owen has to decide what reality ah they choose to believe is real. This movie is kind of like
01:11:09
Speaker
It's hard to describe in terms of a plot, because although it has one... The plot's not what matters. The plot's not what matters. It is very much a vibes-based movie.
01:11:19
Speaker
Um, I think, so I think what we should first do is go this movies about trans transgender, like the gender small fear and specifically being transgender and like the disconnect you can have between the, uh, identity you've been given and they did the identity that you feel you are. And what's important is to note that neither of us.
01:11:45
Speaker
I dar'nt and don't know about, that's why I'm sorry. I don't know why I keep saying neither of us. I'm assuming I do not suffer from these issues. I look at this, neither of us suffer from gender dysmorphia. And a lot of this movie, if not all of this movie is a parable for um gender dysmorphia. It's a movie by a trans director, a largely queer cast and um specifically about these um sort of ideas. And I think
01:12:20
Speaker
i'm I'm not going to put words in your mouth either, but I think what we kind of just want to put out here is that we're aware that a lot of this movie is not in directly targeted at people like me and Mitch, um and what we say about the movie is not criticism on that.
01:12:40
Speaker
um And we absolutely want to make it clear that um our thoughts on this movie are in no way related to our beliefs about um
01:12:59
Speaker
respecting trans people. And I think we will both very comfortably say that ah we absolutely, um, you got this i believe in you um we We absolutely love and respect um trans people, whether they're when they've come out or not.
01:13:22
Speaker
and um the What we're saying here about this movie is ah our analysis of the movie and not a critique of an identity.
Trans Narratives and Diverse Stories
01:13:37
Speaker
and um I think we just want to make that really clear.
01:13:41
Speaker
um yeah We are also sort of aware not sort of about we're also aware that because ah this is so much um interrelated with each other, um that it's sometimes hard to differentiate between um where one um commentary stops and the other one starts. um And so we, before we ah started, um Mitch, you said you had, you wanted to read a review. There's a lengthy review that I think should be read first. um It is long, but I think that is unimportant because Max and I are going to waffle on for another 30 to 40 minutes about this film. And so
01:14:24
Speaker
we can dedicate a chunk of the podcast to ah someone whose identity and yeah um gender connects more to this film than ours. I also just kind of want to say I went looking for some transgender film reviewers who looked at this film.
01:14:41
Speaker
I wasn't able to find any official ones. That's not to say that they're not there. I just wasn't able to see many, but there are a bunch on Reddit and letterbox. I see by official, you mean like published. I mean, like just when I mean, I mean published, I also mean just like blogs or anything like that. I just couldn't find any that were like under like an umbrella, of like ah ah some sort of place where like this this is like where they review films and stuff I couldn't I was hoping to find some sort of LGBTQIA plus review space but I wasn't able to find it. um Sorry, if anyone who knows knows like who listens and knows of one could send us one like some or one that'd be fantastic. ah But
01:15:25
Speaker
um I can recommend just going on to Letterboxd and going to Reddit and other social medias and just taking a look at some other perspectives beyond ours as well to understand like the ah impact this movie has had on that community. um But I am going to read one that is I think just really It's really touching and I think is really good to hear. And just like make sure that even if you don't go out and seek out these other ones, you can at least hear one point of view that isn't ours on this podcast. All right.
01:16:01
Speaker
So this is a review that was um posted on the 22nd of April, 2024 by a user named Julie for I saw the TV glow on letterboxed. It's the, I think the most popular review on in that like review as well. Like it's got the most hearts or whatever. Um, so it's easy to find. Uh, yeah.
01:16:24
Speaker
My name is Julie. I am a trans woman and tonight is the first time I've said those words to anyone other than myself. I first started questioning my gender identity around my so um sophomore year of high school. It had never crossed my mind when I was younger. I thought I was comfortable with my identity until very gradually becoming overwhelmed with the feeling I wasn't. Looking back in hindsight, I think I had always felt uncomfortable in my own skin to some degree, but I never knew how to put a finger on it. I slowly started to realize I'd be happier as a girl, but the more confident I became in that assertion, the more scared I became of actually expressing it.
01:17:02
Speaker
So I pushed it down. I denied it. I repressed everything and continued living as a shell of myself. In senior year, I came out to my friends as non-binary and started using different pronouns. It felt like the right move at the time, a way to distance myself at least somewhat from an assigned identity that didn't represent who I was, but there was still something off. The truth was that I wanted to be a girl.
01:17:26
Speaker
But I still didn't know how to express it. And I was still hiding behind a name I hated, but didn't have the courage to change. During my last summer before heading off to college, I told myself it was finally the time to become out as trans. I was about to start from scratch, head into a new chapter of my life, meet new people. If there was ever a time to finally start living as my authentic self, this was it. And then I just never did it.
01:17:50
Speaker
I was still too scared. So I went through my freshman year of college, still going by my old name, still hiding behind a facade. It ate away at me every night, but I just couldn't bring myself to take the one big step I needed to. Watching, I saw the TV glow tonight. I saw myself up there on the screen in a way I never thought I'd see it in film.
01:18:09
Speaker
My exact experience with dysphoria had been perfectly, devastatingly articulated. Transness and gender dysphoria are never directly mentioned in the film, but it's unmistakable unmistakably there in the text. It's about the dangers and horrors of living behind a facade, of denying your true identity and living as a shell of yourself.
01:18:29
Speaker
It's a film rooted in the feeling of realizing your body isn't yours. Your life isn't yours. The memories you thought were happy and normal now feel false. Like you were seeing someone else's memories the whole time and you were just not a real person. A spectator in your own life. It's a cautionary tale about what happens when you push all that down for too long until it eventually comes roaring back up and it's too late to do anything about it.
01:18:55
Speaker
But that's the thing. It's not too late. It's never too late. There is still time. This movie showed me a deeply sad, horrifying version of my life and what it could be like if I kept going the way I was. As the credits rolled, I knew what I had to do. I couldn't hide anymore. The egg had cracked open.
01:19:14
Speaker
I came out to my friends as we walked back to our dorms afterwards. I then came out to my friends from home over text. My anxiety had me immediately feeling like I regretted it and wanted to crawl back behind my shell, but I knew deep down it was the right choice. If not now, then when? How long could I have kept going like this? It was scary and the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, but it was also me lifting the biggest weight in the world off my chest. And this movie was the push I needed to finally take that leap.
01:19:42
Speaker
We'll have more to write on a rewatch, but suffice to say that this movie means a hell of a lot to me. I am eternally grateful for this film in Jane Shun Buran for making it. Film of the year, film of the decade, film of a generation. So, excusing the couple of times I mucked up that, um just reading things out because I'm incapable of reading things. It's a beautiful review and I think I want the 20 or so listeners that we have to keep it in mind as we continue this discussion forward. And I just, I really want upfront the respect I have for this film to be what's acknowledged first. um i I don't want, I want films like this to be made. I want them to continue to be made. And even if they aren't films that I personally enjoy,
01:20:38
Speaker
I think they're important and I think they need to be made. And the there should be space always there for storytellers such as Jane Schunenbrunn to tell these types of stories about and to to share them even with people who may not fully understand it on a personal level, but still to be able to view it as like,
01:21:04
Speaker
a story because that stories are sharing experiences in immersion. And I just think that's really important. So I'm not going to pass to Max. What do you think? I had a really interesting experience with this film because my immediate reaction was to this film. I'm not sure I like it. um And it only hit me later, later that evening that um this was going to be one of those films that I did not like um on a first watch because I was uncomfortable with what it said and not because it was a bad film.
01:21:54
Speaker
And there's a couple of other movies that I have had very similar reactions to. And they are they do tend to be movies in a similar sort of vein, where um they are very high tension um and create this sort of base level of anticipatory grid.
01:22:24
Speaker
through the whole film. um The two the two that come to mind for me are Ex Machina by Alex Garland and um ah The Killing of a Sacred Deer by Jorgus Lanthimos and both of those films when I first watched them my reaction was I hate this I hate this film um and only being able to sit with it and go and think about the film and the fact that even after watching
01:22:59
Speaker
the film, I was forced to sit with it. I was forced to sit with the ideas just because of the way that film presents and presented itself and not because of any other specific reason. um I've come to respect to men and then really fully enjoy um those it's two movies and I can see um I Saw the TV Glow as one of those movies um sort of developing in a very similar way. I walked out of the cinema, I thought maybe I was bored, maybe I didn't get it, maybe the messaging was a bit lost on me.
01:23:37
Speaker
And I sat with her that night, and I sat with her the next morning, um and I just kept thinking about it. um And the more I thought about it, the more I went, this is really interesting. This film is not only really visually interesting, I think, for me, then ah beyond talking about, like, narrative or, um,
01:24:08
Speaker
subtext or anything like that. If you look at this film from a purely visual perspective, it's an amazing piece of work. The um combination of color and um of like the practical and um special effects that they use, I think is really fantastic. There's a whole lot of work doing throwbacks to that Buffy the Vampire Slayer kind of ah era of television thing come even like earlier, Doctor Who, um any of that sort of monster of the week kind of stuff, um especially that lower, ah lower budget um sort of stuff and really encapsulating
01:24:52
Speaker
not just one that um looked like, but what it felt like. um and like Especially when you're younger and and you're and you' um sort of engaging with this sort of stuff for the first time. And I think that's a lot about what but of what this film is. is but it's about um Obviously, it's it's about the there's ah there's a transparable in here, but the other thing that this movie really is about is reflecting on your experience as a kid and sort of this idea of this nostalgia that comes through um and how much that clouds our understanding of of what our childhoods really were like. And obviously, for some people,
01:25:48
Speaker
ah It's, well, rather, it it varies distinctly from person to person about, um I guess, the extent to which our brains sort of manipulate the um experiences that we've had. um But in a sort of roundabout way, I'll try and um summarize what I'm saying, but um I think this is a movie that I, although on a first watch,
01:26:20
Speaker
I'm not sure I entirely enjoyed. um I have a feeling this is a movie that I'm going to revisit, and so I have a feeling that um this movie has not only and is not only only had a profound impact since its release, but will continue to to be something that um people refer to back to as a sort of seminal piece of media um about trans issues, about gender dysphoria, and um just as a sort of piece of cinema that is
01:27:06
Speaker
important in a way that it sort of forces you to sit with those ideas. And I think that's something that I've really come to appreciate about this film is that it sort of made me sit with the ideas that are presented more than anything else.
01:27:25
Speaker
Yeah. Um, walking out of the movie, I was I walked into it wanting to love it because I'd heard so much about it and I really... I like horror as a genre and I like weird horror and I think it's a very potent tool to so talk about um uncomfortable topics because it's just by design that's what horror is. it's a way that it I mean obviously there's horror that means nothing but there's also horror that
01:27:59
Speaker
that, especially within the current trend of what's called elevated horror, it can talk about topics that are uncomfortable to the general society. And I was really excited to watch it. and I just I found myself while watching it a bit disappointed. um Because I found I wasn't It wasn't what I guess I wasn't really sure what I was expecting, but I guess it wasn't what I was expecting it to be. And I absolutely believe that I need to rewatch it to to fully to decide on my final decision on what I feel about this movie. i Like, as you were saying, I think there's a necessity to rewatch it because a lot of my issues with the film don't come from.
01:28:38
Speaker
It's a lot of craft in here. Sorry. I know I'm being a bit like disjointed. I just keep remembering there's like clarifications I want to make before I say what I want to say. It's a lot of craft in here that I think is absolutely brilliant. I think there's a lot of visuals that are great. I think all of the color grading is really brilliant. Um, when they are showing the footage from the old TV show, it is so well done in a way that just like I've, my mom is a huge Buffy fan. So I watched a bunch of Buffy when I was younger.
01:29:09
Speaker
it It was very reminiscent of like, like I got Buffy vibes from from the show, which is absolutely worth going for. like they They did a brilliant job of creating these artifacts of a time that is now long gone, like 20, 30 years ago.
Film Critiques and Rewatch Plans
01:29:27
Speaker
I just feel what I felt while watching it was just there was a lack of connection between parts that I thought needed to be there to make it a more cohesive whole. I thought individual parts of the film were brilliant. I just didn't feel the connection between them that would make the whole a better film. And I'm wondering now if maybe I just need to watch it again expecting
01:29:56
Speaker
expecting what's going to happen to go in to be able to see the connections better, to see what string has been placed to incorporate every single part.
01:30:06
Speaker
it's I think you and I have done this film a disservice and not giving it a second rewatch before reviewing it. I, i um, uh, and it's almost disappointing that that's the case. And it's, and it almost makes me want to propose to you, uh, let's do a podcast where we just rewatch. I saw like a bonus one where we just rewatch it and give another review, but you and I are such busy people that I don't know if we had to do that, but it, it's.
01:30:34
Speaker
It's so impressive just as a film in so many ways that are hard to just describe. it's But there's just a level of, I wanted more.
01:30:45
Speaker
I think what my biggest problem with the film is that I wanted more horror. And I think the reason why I wanted more horror is because I wasn't connecting with the actual horror that is there, which is in the gender dysmorphia and in that disconnection from your identity. Cause I've never had those issues. So I can't connect to that, but that's where the horror is. And that's why I'm asking for more. I think that's where the biggest disconnection between who this movie was made for and who this movie's story is talking about and who me watched it where that disconnection is and that's that's really disappointing but also it's definitely a part of the like my viewing experience and i it it is it's tricky it's basically what i'm coming down to and there's a simplest point it's just it's tricky
01:31:34
Speaker
It was interesting looking at um the letterbox reviews because I'm the kind of person who will sit in the cinema with the credits rolling, yeah pull out my phone, do the review, and and have a bit of a squiz about what what other people are saying about it. and um There's this amazingly stark contrast between people who really love and really despise this film. um yeah And I just like, at least from what I've briefly talked about it with you, what I've talked about with um the other people that we saw it with is that none of us went to that extent, went to that sort of extreme
01:32:28
Speaker
I don't think any of us be actively dislike it. yeah yeah it was ah it it's ah It was an interesting sort of um ah thing to look at because you see these really polarizing extremes you know in a lot of the um reviews. And even if you just go like you Google the movie, I'm just like pulled it up now. um It's got an even 3.0 just on Google um from six hundred over 600 reviews. And it's almost equal five stars and one star ratings, um which is like crazy as a
01:33:13
Speaker
like this incredibly polarizing pace of media and there's And I don't know how much truth is in it. And I don't know how much I actually want to say on the podcast and whether we'll cut around it. we'll see how i'll see how i go it seems It seems to be that there's there's a a fair bit of transphobia coming across in that um polarized extreme as well, um which
01:33:48
Speaker
is obviously not a – something that should be – it's not a valid criticism and it's not something that is um like, it's not a criticism of the movie, but a sort of this ah reactionary response to something that isn't for some people rather than going, this isn't for me and I can appreciate that it's not for me. yeah um I don't know. I don't want to like,
01:34:26
Speaker
blanket that. I don't want to say like that's the only people saying that, but it seems to be that there's a lot of reviews that have this undertone of Um, well, I don't like trans people. Um, and so therefore I don't like this movie. And, um, it's I think something that both you and I would comfortably disagree with in saying that this, this, this movie for us was not incredibly, it was not a polarizing movie. no Um, it does not deserve hate in any way.
01:35:04
Speaker
There's nothing, ah there's nothing in it that makes me go, this is absolute garbage. It's more a level of disconnect and who we are and who the story is for. Yeah, um, and I absolutely wanted to just like reiterate what you're saying about there's really great moments in this film. And there's a lot of really slow moments, which I um quite like in cinema. I'm a big fan of slurry cinema. um and you there's ah There's an implication that um
01:35:41
Speaker
at the very minimum the character that we follow Owen is autistic as well. um And that comes across pretty strongly for me at least in um in that character and then in the way that he communicates with other people um throughout the film.
01:36:00
Speaker
um And I think that sort of paired with that sort of slow um slow cinema sort of approach really gives this sense of yeah this light lingering, which I think, which which is very much intentional, um and sort of forces you to sit and look at these moments in time. And the more that I sort of think about this film and thinking about what you're saying in terms of those disconnects, is very much like there's a film that I love very dearly, which is Boyhood, um who and I always forget
01:36:45
Speaker
director's name, which is terrible. oh Big fan. big fan yeah a Huge fan. Can't remember the director's name. ah Boyhood by um Richard Linklater. Oh, is it Richard Linklater? Yeah, it's Richard Linklater. I should watch that movie. And it's filmed over a period of several years. So the the characters ah follow we follow were the same actors growing up over a period of time. And I think that this movie,
01:37:13
Speaker
like um attempts a sort of similar idea where we see these really distinct moments in these characters lives and we sit with them and then we just suddenly move to the next one. And um I think to a degree, that's a lot of what growing up is like, where ah you sort of do realize that this is the moment in your life that where you are right now, and everything that happened before has already happened. And I think that that sort of idea is like, is a bit scary, that, um like, just just that idea of that, you know, what has happened has happened, you can't really do anything about that. um And that every time that you sort of look back,
01:37:59
Speaker
it it does feel a bit sudden, and a bit disjointed, even if everything sort of they are connecting bits in between. um And so, yeah, it's just, I'm finding it really hard to talk about this film, because I really think that my initial sort of reactionary response to this movie is not The like opinion that I have of it in retrospect, which is sort of an interesting idea given the subject of the movie itself. Yeah. This idea of that, like you're reflecting back on these, on these paces of media and seeing yourself in, in paces of media. Um, and seeing you're like i not remembering them entirely correctly. Yeah. Um, and remembering what you need, what you feel like you need to remember out of them. And, um,
01:38:57
Speaker
I think it's almost a bit interesting um that ah perhaps to an extent I'm doing this I'm i'm ah filling in this narrative to to um make this film what i I want it to be as well from from from my experience but absolutely I think this is an in desperate need of a rewatch and um there are so many good things about this film um that I really appreciate and I just think that my initial sort of gut reaction um to this film just maybe is what
01:39:39
Speaker
Um, I mean, it is what it is, but, um, I really think that this is this film, like I find why I'm only improving with age. Yeah. I, I just, yeah, it's, it's tricky because this is a movie that like, that kind of feels like it bounced off me a little bit, but it also contains two lines that I thought were absolutely brilliant. And it's hard to come to terms with the fact that a piece of media, because there's a lot of.
01:40:07
Speaker
I watch a lot of movies and I don't walk away from a lot of movies with lines that remain in my head just because ah since I watch so much of it, it just like I don't have the room to maintain specific quotes, but there's just two that I don't think I'm going to get perfectly right. So it might deb but debase my point, but there's just two lines like the the what what was said, like the one where it's he um he's first getting in contact with Maddie. So what's the main character's name again? I forgot his name. so Owen. Owen is first getting in contact with Maddie again.
01:40:36
Speaker
And she goes, I like girls. um Do you like girls? And he goes, I don't know. And then she goes, Do you like boys? Like, I don't know. I think I like TV shows. Like, that's a brilliant line, which was kind of punctuated by both you and Mr. Manager looking directly at me as if it's ah something that Yeah, I relate to that a little bit too much. Not so much TV shows, more movies, but yeah, I get it. Um, but then the other line I thought was really brilliant was the line was like, this isn't us like the shadow. I can't, is it the shadow realm or what is it called? What do they call it? Like the Twilight, the Twilight realm.
01:41:15
Speaker
I think it's like the Twilight Realm, but whatever it is, like this isn't the Twilight Realm. This is the suburbs. It's just a brilliant line read. And it's just a very it's it's it's both hilarious, but also has horror in it because it's this idea of just like the real world is where the horror is. And like it can't the the suburbs doesn't keep you. It's it's too complicated for me to able explain in one sentence. and I don't want to like it is gene it is clever. It's just It's punctuated by the fact that I i did hit a point with the acting. Okay, i was I was talking to our friend because we were trying to find his car um after the film. So we spent a good time talking about the film when we as we walked around, Pentry's looking for his car. And what I came to was I couldn't figure out if it was an acting choice, a script problem, or a directing choice, but I just found that some of the extended dialogue scenes bounced off me just because
01:42:15
Speaker
the dialogue seemed to just kind of be a bit too something. I can't put my finger on it, but I just couldn't connect to the two characters. as Like oftentimes both of them were fine, but just hit a point where like, I would just, the dialogue grated on me a little bit and I'm not really sure.
01:42:33
Speaker
maybe Maybe that's like a deliberate choice as well, but I... I know i know what you mean, and I i have a feeling it is a deliberate choice because um the I think what you're describing is there's these points of a dialogue gets to us where um you'll have a natural flow of dialogue and then it will sort of stop.
01:42:57
Speaker
And then you'll have one character say something and then they'll stop. And another character will say something that is sort of related and then stop. It's like you ever seen that skit, that old British skit, where it's a guy who's meant to be answering the question that came before last? Good evening. Your name, please. ah Good evening. Your chosen subject was answering questions before they were asked. This time you have chosen to answer the question before last each time. Is that correct? Charlie Smithers.
01:43:27
Speaker
um And your time starts now. What is paleontology? Yes, absolutely correct. um What's the name of the directory that lists members of the peerage? A study of old fossils. Who are Len Murray and Sir Geoffrey Howe? Burks.
01:43:45
Speaker
and It's very funny, you should look it up, but it felt like that in dialogue form. the One character would respond, usually it was Orwen responding, something Maddie said two-cent statements before, and then she would have said something else, and he would then respond to two sentences before, and then she would say another thing, and then hed he he was continuously like kind of playing catch-up, and that kind of played with my head. like It was just hard to follow a little bit for me. and Like in the skit, it's played for laughs because like they do, they, they set up questions to be like, Oh, what's a Democrat or something? Not a Democrat. I can't remember the exact thing, but it's like, what's like, what's a train conductor and asks because two questions beforehand, he was asked what's ah what's another name for a donkey. And so it's like, it's set up. It's like, it's like that, but you know, dramatic form where like there is no comedy to be de derived from it. It's just.
01:44:35
Speaker
confusing. you know yeah I think it's, yeah, my my instinct is is that it is a deliberate choice. and It goes back to that sort of that yeah that seeming portrayal that um at least Owen, but probably Owen and Maddie have are both um intended to be autistic characters and um ah communicate in a way that maybe doesn't seem as natural as other dialogue does tend to be because um there there is a sort of back and forth where they're answering previous questions, um where they're stuck on um previous ideas. um So with all that said, ah and all of our previous discussion about ah the
01:45:23
Speaker
flawed system of using- I'm putting a number to something. Putting a number to something, especially a piece of art that, as we've already mentioned, has been highly polarized and something that I think we both agree would benefit from a rewatch. Do you want to give us a score? I think it's you to go first because I went first last time.
01:45:53
Speaker
But yeah, I'm i'm willing to give a score.
01:45:58
Speaker
um Again, I am going to... um So this score that I'm about to give is a score that I gave coming out of a theatre. This is the same for me.
01:46:11
Speaker
And I don't think it's entirely reflective of what I think about the movie now, but I don't want to change the score because it's not my experience with the movie. Well, it is my experience with the movie, but it's not my related to my direct consumption of the movie. It's the sort of aftermath of the movie. So when I'm just going to preface my score by saying that this was my initial gut reaction.
01:46:39
Speaker
And that um it's definitely been a movie that I've since sat with and thought about a lot. yeah um And have had scenes that I've sat with and thought about a lot.
01:46:55
Speaker
um And ultimately, I don't think that this score is particularly reflective of that part of the experience, but here we go anyway.
01:47:09
Speaker
I gave, I saw the TV glow two seasons and a movie. Oh no, I have a similar score. Um, so I basically everything Mac said, and also I want to reiterate that please hold our discussion higher than the arbitrary number we gave.
01:47:31
Speaker
on this film, like that's our discussion. Art is to be discussed, not rated. Um, even though we do rates and it's a bit hypocritical of us, but we kind of started doing ratings as a jerk and it's now part in kind of baked into our podcast. So ah when I think when we ah started doing ratings, we talked about just doing like random numbers, yeah numbers like not having a scale, yeah um just going like, I'm going to give this 52 bananas.
01:47:57
Speaker
Yeah, like that was kind of it, but then we just kind of hit a point where we're like, this is confusing for both of us. And so we'll just like do out of five, but yeah. So I think it's always, I think I've always felt a little bit unhappy, but not too much. So to like really change it, but just like, I don't like, but I don't like reading art. It is. and And that's funny to say, cause I do it every single week on a podcast and I also do it every single time I watch a new movie or watch any movie on like Like I i write art, but I don't like
Mitch's Film Trivia and Podcast Wrap-Up
01:48:26
Speaker
it. i I'm part of the problem is basically what I'm saying, even though um I'm a hypocrite. But anyway, um I gave this movie two seasons, which is ah one more season than Dark Crystal Age of Resistance got. Yeah, that got shafted real bad. Have you seen it though? It's so good. I've seen like bits and pieces of the movie that is meant to be like terrible.
01:48:53
Speaker
Dark Crystal movies so good though. i My on understanding was that Dark Crystal was just like a bit of a form. Maybe, but I think it's brilliant. I need to rewatch it. It's been a while, but I think it's a brilliant movie. I i love it. Two movies that we got to rewatch. Should we do well like a bonus episode one day of just Dark Crystal and and I saw the TV glow? With the theme... um Movies we're rewatching. Movies we're rewatching because we probably don't remember them the way they were actually were.
01:49:22
Speaker
Oh, they deserve, they just deserve the rewatch. Yeah, we should do that. they Kind of like purple. Oh yeah. Pinky purple. Yeah, that pinky purple, dark crystals that pinky purple. It absolutely does. You're right. Yeah. Oh yeah. I'm going to hit the button. Yeah.
01:49:41
Speaker
Wow. The TV's turned back on max. What's got my emails on it, Mitch? why Why does the TV have my emails? I hooked up the computer with an HDMI cable. Oh, click, click, click to my emails. Oh, what's this? Do we have any new emails? Oh, crap. Does this is mean it's film buff? That must mean it's time for... said Film buff.
01:50:15
Speaker
goodness i'm so glad but This is a segment of the show where I asked Mitch a bunch of questions
01:50:35
Speaker
I hate those segments, it just shows how little I really know about film. And I think I said that two weeks ago as well. It's just, ah it's something I'm reiterating right now. It's because I, it's ah it's a huge hit to, especially since I'm editing this week. So if I do poorly, I'm gonna have to re-listen to me just being absolutely garbage at this. Anyway, let's go. Let's do it. All right. The first one I have is a court. Yep, I know. That many dreams within dreams is too unstable. It's inception.
01:51:05
Speaker
Do I have a character? I would assume it's either, no one knows the character's names and inception. Is is it is it Cobb? Is it Leonardo DiCaprio? It's either Leonardo DiCaprio's character or um Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character. It's probably Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character. but It's Yousuf. I don't know who played Yousuf was played by. I'm going Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
01:51:36
Speaker
No, it wasn't. It was Dully Parral. Oh, it was him. Do I can still get the point? He got yeah half a point. man Ben is the security guard. Who knows the names of these freaking characters in Inception? It's just Leonardo DiCaprio. Please continue. So are you Murphy's in this? Yeah, he's on the guy they incept.
01:51:59
Speaker
Dude, I did not realize that. Dude, it's Killian Murphy. Oh, yeah. So we've got fan mail about it. Killian Murphy is a- Dude, this sounds like an insane cast. He's a Christopher Nolan alumni. I know I have pages in it. I have not watched this movie in a very long time. This is the last time I've been when we watched it at Ry. Probably. It's like 10 years ago. More than that.
01:52:28
Speaker
Ben Stiller is a security guard surrounded by statues. Neither the museum is correct. Which actor won the best adapted screenplay Oscar for The Descendants? George Clooney. Jim Rash. Really? Yes. Oh, did not realize that. Who directed Rocky?
01:52:53
Speaker
Rocky, um, um' Rocky, not correct murder the guy who played Rocky, um, Sylvester Stallone. Uh, that's incorrect. What is John G. Alvedson? Did he write it? Did Sylvester Stallone write it? is that That's embarrassing. All right. I'm just doing a quick fact check. Yeah. Sylvester Stallone wrote it.
01:53:15
Speaker
ah Sylvester Stallone starred as Rocky Balboa. and and very it yeah ah got confused this is not going well at all What duo is responsible for the music in the Sound of Music?
01:53:31
Speaker
the cohen brothers You know that is not the answer. I know that's not the answer, but I don't know. who like it They're very famous music people. That means nothing to me. It's Rodgers and Hammerstein. I would not have known that. I don't know. I've never heard that name before in my life. You should look them up. You'll probably recognize more of this stuff. yeah um Lawrence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh have both played what role on screen? Is it like the mean? Is it from Othello?
01:54:01
Speaker
You're very close. Um, it's not Othello cause Lawrence Fishburne plays Othello. Sorry. Maybe not that close, but you're like in the realm of closeness. It's so it's a, it's a, it's a Shakespeare part. Yeah. Okay.
01:54:19
Speaker
Can I, if you tell me the play, will it give away too much? Yes. Is it there for Hamlet? Yes.
01:54:34
Speaker
That's a total of... One and a half? Two and a half points. Two and a half, that's half of them. No, it's not. what How many are there? That's six. Oh man. I'm gonna cry.
01:54:51
Speaker
I hate this goddamn podcast, man.
01:54:57
Speaker
ah This has been the Blockbuster podcast. I've been um a haunted tape titled Mitch. And I've been spooky Max, you can send us. ah You can send us coughs, um questions, reviews and warranted hate mail at Blockbuster potty at gmail dot.com. Also, I said com com com com. Also, can you ah please, this is another call out. If you know of any like LGBTQIA plus review blogs or places that are like, they ah like, ah like some sort of group, that would be great. I would actually like to start reading some more of those. s So please send those through as well. If you don't have any shit, I should have said this up. Let us know if you like film buff. also those aren like so yeah Please save me from embarrassing myself every single week. Um, that's potty spelled here. Double DIE.
01:55:52
Speaker
Um, you could also find us on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok at the username bbpotty. Leave us a five star. I'll try and, I'll try and, ah I did a bit of posting like two weeks in here. And then I was like, yep. And then I was like bad for a week. So I'll i'll try again this week. We'll see how we go. Can I, can I give you the TikTok things? No, can send us more things. But I don't know what to do on it. Like we haven't figured out how to make clips. We can make clips.
01:56:22
Speaker
leave us a five star review on your podcast cat cat cat pod catcher of choice um and well leave us a five star rating and then review us if you can um we only look at um uh apple and spotify right now um you do spotify i always do apple because i don know where apple is um we still don't have any on apple i reckon we probably would have got like an email if they said like oh you got a review you reckon uh maybe well we'll just assume that we don't have any then um
01:57:05
Speaker
I've actually managed to tie in my next week, what memories we're doing, and this week what you should do in one go. So if you want to stop. Yeah. um That's insane. This week, turn off the TV and pick up a book because next week, we're doing Ink Heart and Bookworm.
01:57:27
Speaker
Perfect. Nailed it. Any notes? I'm talking like... I feel like there's a joke there with like the worm inside Robert robert F. Kennedy's brain. Wait, what? Worm heart. Worm heart and ink book. Ew. I couldn't think of anything funny to say so I just said ew. And so to our first contender. Good evening, your name please. ah Good evening.
01:57:52
Speaker
Your chosen subject was answering questions before they were asked. This time you have chosen to answer the question before last each time. Is that correct? Charlie Smithers. um um And your time starts now. What is paleontology? Yes, absolutely correct. um What's the name of the directory that lists members of the peerage? A study of old fossils. um Who are Len Murray and Sir Geoffrey Howe? Burks.
01:58:21
Speaker
a Correct. What is the difference between a donkey and an ass? ah One's a trade union, nearly the other's a member of the category.
01:58:31
Speaker
um
01:58:37
Speaker
Complete the quotation, to be or not to be? They're both the same. Great. What is Bernard Manning famous for? That is the question. um Who is the present Archbishop of Canterbury? He is a fat man who tells blue jokes. um What do people kneel on in church? The right Reverend Robert Runcie. What do tarantulas prey on? Hassocks. Correct. What would you use a rip cord to pull open? Large flies. Correct. What sort of a person lived in Bedlam? A parachute. Correct. What is a jockstrap? A nutcase.
01:59:21
Speaker
um
01:59:28
Speaker
um For what purpose would a decorator use methylene chlorides? A form of athletic support. Correct. What did Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec do? ah Paint strippers. um Who is Dean Martin? um He's a kind of artist. Yes. What sort of artist?
01:59:45
Speaker
um
01:59:49
Speaker
Pass. That's near enough. What make of vehicle is the standard London bus? A singer. Correct. In 1892, Brandon Thomas wrote a famous long-running English farce. What was it? Bridget Land.
02:00:05
Speaker
um Correct. Complete the following... I've started, so I've finished. Complete the following quotation about Mrs Thatcher. Her heart may be in the right place, but her... Charlie's aunt. Correct.