a16z Podcast - Marc Andreessen: How Movies Explain America

Episode Date: October 24, 2025

In this episode of Monitoring the Situation, Marc Andreessen, Katherine Boyle, and Erik Torenberg dive into the movies that best explain America, from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood to Tropic Thunder to Fight Club.They explore how Tarantino’s revisionist masterpiece reimagines 1969 and the end of America’s cultural innocence, why Tropic Thunder was the last truly un-cancellable comedy, and how Fight Club evolved from a left-wing critique of capitalism to a right-wing prophecy about alienation and identity.Along the way, they trace the parallels between the counterculture of the 1960s and the internet culture wars of the 2010s, and debate whether we’re living through another great American cultural reset. Resources:Follow Marc on X: https://x.com/pmarcaFollow Katherine on X: https://x.com/KTmBoyle Stay Updated: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends!Find a16z on X: https://x.com/a16zFind a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16zListen to the a16z Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYXListen to the a16z Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711Follow our host: https://x.com/eriktorenbergPlease note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures. Stay Updated:Find a16z on XFind a16z on LinkedInListen to the a16z Podcast on SpotifyListen to the a16z Podcast on Apple PodcastsFollow our host: https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Ellie, in a lot of ways, is sort of, you could describe it as like it's the archetypal American city. Here's the largest significance of what's upon a time in Hollywood, or my view of it, which is it captures a time and place that was absolutely critical to the evolution of modern America. The reaction from the audience is extreme laughter. You are laughing during the most island sequence for 20 minutes. Some movies don't just entertain. They help explain America. On this episode of moderating the situation, Catherine Boyle and I are joined by A16Z general partner Mark and Dries. recent to talk about the films that capture the country's turning points, from Hollywood's golden age to the counterculture, from the comedies we could once make to the stories that

still define us. We look at how different directors across decades have reflected and sometimes predicted where America was heading and what its art reveals about the culture behind it. Let's get into it. Well, I'm excited to have the Modern Situation crew back for another episode on movies. Mark, thanks for joining again. Yes, excited. So we wanted to go, deeper into some of our favorite movies. Mark, I know from watching movies with you that one of your genres you enjoy is movies about Hollywood. And so we wanted to start with once upon a time in Hollywood. Why don't you talk about what's so remarkable about that or why you wanted to talk about it? The reason that movies about Hollywood, I mean, one is they tend to be very entertaining

because, of course, the people who make movies about Hollywood are from Hollywood, they know where all the bodies are buried and they tend to put them all in the movies. And so they're, you know, a whole run-up spectacular Hollywood movies. So for people who haven't seen, I would recommend Mahalo Drive. It's one of Eric's favorites. And then the player, which also is an all-time one. There's a bunch, of course, famous ones, like Sunset Boulevard. But, you know, the iconic Hollywood movie, you know, now is once upon a time in Hollywood, you know, like Quentin Tarantino.

And so the reason I like Hollywood movies is because, you know, there are a handful of cities that have a claim to be like the ultimate American city. And, you know, New York City is one of those, you know, I think, you know, San Francisco in some ways, you know, where we are is. But L.A. and Las Vegas also put it in the list. By the way, for Las Vegas, see Bugsie. I'll talk about that another time. But that's the iconic Vegas.

movie. But L.A. in a lot of ways, you could describe it as like it's the archetypal American City. Literally, it's a, there's a great book we can put in the notes called Thinking Big, where it goes to actually the creation of the city of Los Angeles. And basically, like, Los Angeles, you could argue, is the ultimate American city because it was the ultimate fake it until you make it thing. Like, it was the thoroughness of cities. And very specifically, like, it was desert. Like, there was absolutely nothing in L.A. And then, you know, literally it was like a land development deal by a bunch of wealthy families in late 1800s. And they literally placed newspaper ads in Eastern newspapers. You know, this is a

before, you know, photography made it into newspapers. And so, like, you know, when there was, like, a picture of something in a newspaper would be a drawing. And so they would list land plots for sale of Los Angeles. And they would have, like, line drawings of, like, you know, orchards and, like, you know, beautiful. Everything's green and poultrys.

And then, you know, people would, like, buy the land, move across country and discover that it was just like blasted out desert. And then, you know, they famously created the city. They carved it out of the desert. And then, you know, it's a famous saga of how they went to get the water, which turned into another great L.A. movie, Chinatown. And, you know, as you'd expect, you know, Hollywood kind of goes for a certain interpretation of history.

And so it, you know, it's sort of painted in retrospect as like a purely evil activity. But, you know, there's actually like a very kind of straightforward reading, which is like this is what was actually required to create a city. But it wasn't as black and white as sort of the Hollywood history has it. It was a more complex story. But still, you know, very, very interesting, amazing story. And, you know, cities like Los Angeles are created every day. So, you know, that's a pretty big deal.

So anyway, like movies about L.A., I think when they reach the level of capital A art, you know, they become movies about America. And so it's like a great test bed or a great subject, you know, There are a great lens through which to look at the history of America. And Once Upon a Time on Hollywood is, I would say, one of the top movies along that theme. Let me start by saying, if anybody watched this hasn't seen Once Upon Time on Hollywood, pause the podcast immediately. Go watch the movie.

And then come back because we're going to spoil the shit on it. And it's tremendously fun to watch if you haven't read about it. By the way, I'd also say, like, it's a tremendously entertaining movie. Like, it's one of the most entertaining Puffer Pond movies. You know, it's like infinitely rewatchable. The cast is ridiculous. Every frame of this thing is amazing. So it's also a very fun movie.

So, okay, so here's the largest significance of Once Upon Time in Hollywood, or my view of it, which is it captures a time and place that was absolutely critical to the evolution of modern America. And I think Catherine, you'll remind me, but I think of the year, was it 69? 69, yeah, 69, yeah, 69. And so to put this in context, and the movie, you know, kind of goes through this, but the movie doesn't explain all the cultural backstory. It shows you what happened, but it doesn't explain the backstory. So I'll just go through the backstory.

So, you know, basically like what we now consider to be the kind of a cultural revolution in the 1960s, you know, really started, you know, probably in like around 1964 with the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and then kind of expanded or metastasized to include, you know, the sort of hippie movements and then, you know, the sort of birth of like modern rock and roll and the rise of the counterculture. And, you know, all of a sudden, everybody's, you know, has long hair and they've got beads and they're, you know, they're wearing suede jackets and they were not washing their Levi's. And, you know, sort of the whole counterculture. And so there was this like incredible explosion of, I mean, the movie boomers were, you know,

coming of age as basically high school and college kids. this incredible explosion of art, culture, creativity, social innovation, you know, the birth of the, you know, the communes, you know, the entire hippie movement. And then, of course, this is also where it went out, the Vietnam War was wrapping up. And so this was, you know, the wrap up in conscription of people, you know, American kids being sent off to Vietnam, you know, kind of, you know, I'd say non-voluteers. And so, you know, the kind of anti-war movement kicked in, the college protest kicked in. And, like, the entire thing was like, you know,

we kind of remember it as like this, like, incredibly, like, sort of spontaneous and, you know, largely positive explosion of kind of, you know, breaking out of the stultified cultural norms of the 1940s, 1950s, you know, the creation of the modern kind of liberated American society. By the way, obviously, also right alongside that, you know, the civil rights movement and the feminism, the gay rights and, you know, kind of the whole explosion of modern morality through that period. And anyway, if you read the histories of the time, basically from 64 to 69,

it was just basically this, like, glorious, wonderful thing with, like, absolutely no downside. Like, you know, these kids that were, like, rioting on their college campuses or protesting at the streets or, like, you know, getting stoned all day, or, you know, having their whole hippie thing or moving to communes, and going back to the Earth, like, they had discovered a far superior way to live, right? They had discovered a far superior way to, like, coexist with nature and to fight against the man and to fight against, you know, evil corporations.

And, you know, fight for the environment, to fight through the planet, fight for peace and the whole thing. And so it was this, like, incredible kind of wave of positivity. And, like, you know, the very good argument that there was a lot, too. You know, a lot of people who do believe that. And that it was like a time of great cultural creativity. You know, led to enormous amounts of, like, amazing art that we still have today. And so that, you know, there's a lot to like about.

it. And then basically what happened is in 1969, it sort of came, the sort of positivity came to a screeching alt. Yeah. It's sort of the movement, you know, basically like, you know, turned, you know, very much the dark side. You know, that sort of began the long slide into the sort of 1970s. And that slide was basically a slide into, you know, variously, among other things, you know, it was a slide into like drugs, you know, very bad drug overdoses, you know, the shift sort of soft drugs, hard drugs. You know, a lot of people who participated in the sort of cultural movement 60s ended up. like dying. We'll talk about the death later on because, you know, the movie directly hits that. But like, there's just an extraordinary amount of death that followed, you know, degradation

and that, you know, turned into, you know, the sexual liberation, it turns out has dark sides. You know, maybe it doesn't so great for everybody. And specifically, maybe it doesn't so great for women, at least in some ways. And then, you know, and then look, you know, in the 70s, it was like, you know, Vietnam was very bad. And then the energy crisis at economic recession, that inflation, you know, just, you know, this very kind of, you know, bitter, divisive, you know, politics. You know, in a lot of ways, you know, sort of the beginning of the political kind of dynamic that we see playing out today. So some of the 70s kind of things weren't really bad.

And then, you know, the bookending movie, once upon a time is the movie sort of about that pivot point. I'll talk about that. And then, you know, Boogie Knights is maybe the movie on the other side of that, right? Which is like, once the culture is kind of sliding down a hill into chaos and madness and disease of death, Boogie Night's Kaffirzette on the other side. But for the purpose of today's discussion, we can focus on 1969. And so if you read the history of time, basically what happened was, it was the Charles

Manson Borders, specifically in Los Angeles. And then I put sort of on behalf of America, it was the Manson Borders that basically were the turning point. It's a manse and murders are the thing that people point to and they kind of say, oh, that was the moment when we all kind of realized, oh shit, there was a dark side of this whole thing and like, oh my God, here we go. And so let's talk about that at like, let me just close off this introductory part, though, what's kind of the most amazing thing about the movie that I found, which is if you know the history of that period, I mean, the Manson murders were super famous at the time. They're still famous in American culture. Kind of everybody knows that there was

a guy Charles Mansion that had this death cult. He was implicate these kids to like go out and kill random people. And, you know, there's so, like, all these, you know, questions, like, how the hell did he do that? Right. And so everybody knows that he was kind of intertwined with Hollywood and intertwined with the movie industry and the music industry. And he was part of that whole thing. And so, you know, everybody kind of knows that. Oh, and then specifically for people who know anything about that, they're sort of famously, the Manson murders are also known as the Sharon Tate murders because there was this like incredibly, you know, vivacious, attractive, bubbly, you know, enthusiastic young blonde actress named Sharon Tate.

who at the time famous that was actually married to Roman Polansky who was, you know, one of the leading, you know, kind of new, you know, Hollywood movie directors at that time when they were this new Hollywood glamour power couple and then Sharon Tate, among other people, you know, Sharon Tate was one of the people murdered it. So Clinton Tarrantino comes out, you know, when he first announces the movie, he comes out and he says,

you know, Quentin Tarantino is going to make the movie about the Charles Mansop Murders. Right. And if you've seen, you know, any other Tarantino movie like Pulp Fiction, for example, you're just like, oh my God, you know, this is going to be a, like, this is going to be horrible. Like, like, the mansum murders are bad enough, but, like, you know, turning them into like a, you know, Tarantino style, you know, mass slaughter, violence, you know, reservoir dogs, you know, just like blood and guts,

you know, uh, exploit, you know, basically super high of exploitation movie as he'd done in the past. It's just like, it was a horror show. And I was actually, I was actually personally worried about it because my wife got all excited to see the movie. Uh, because, you know, she, you know, because it's going to start Leo de Cabrio and Brett Kent. And it's going to be about Hollywood and, you know, all this, you know, design and all this, you know, creativity and she's like we got to go see this movie and I'm like I'm like we can't go see the movie because you are going to be so traumatized by what he puts on screen that like you're never going to want to ever see a movie ever again and you're going to hold it against me for the rest of my life

but it didn't prevent you for seeing this movie because it's obviously just going to be a complete horror show like it's just a disaster and actually Sharon Tate's family actually came out and basically said when this movie is first now basically said like wait a minute hold on like you know we don't want the memory of our you know of our you know of our family member you know who, you know, we used to love, you know, many decades later, you know, kind of, you know, turned into basically fodder for, you know, basically Hollywood exploitation. And then there was this, like, amazing thing that happened. And nobody knew anything about the movie, which is, Taratino, at least the way stories recorded, Territino actually let, I think it was Sharon Tate's, it was either sister, and maybe sister or something like that, read the script. And immediately, the family did a one day, and they came right out, and they said, we completely approve.

And I remember at the time reading that, and I was like, what the hell? Like, how is it they could possibly get that the Tate family of all people on board with putting this on screen? And, of course, you know, that leads to kind of the, you know, the movie sort of turns into a Valentine, a Valentine, Hollywood, and to America, and specifically to Sharon Tate. You know, it's like, you know, it really, you know, kind of restores her memory in an amazing way. Can I think something very smart in the movie for those of us who love Tarantino and follow his work. So I think that was like the common theme was like, oh, God, this is going to be horrific, right? And especially if you've read about, if you know the Manson murders, if you've read about how gruesome they are. Like, yes, that was sort of the dominant theme.

But his, you know, he made a few films between. But like, I'd say the last other fantastic Tarantino film was the revenge fantasy and glorious bastards. Which is, of course, you know, again, like could have been, but it is extremely gruesome. But at the same time, it's a revenge fantasy of what could have happened. happened. What could have happened if someone had killed Hitler? And so in the very beginning of the movie, there's a scene with Leonardo DiCaprio, also at the end, but there's a scene in the very beginning where it shows all of his films, and he has the famous flamethrower from Ingrorious Bastards. And so if you're a Tarantino fan, you're like, wait, wait, which direction are we

going in? Are we going in gruesome violence with no purpose? Which I would argue Tarantino is always misunderstood in that way? Or are we going in a different direction? a little more fantastical, a little more what could have happened. And so for those of us with, like, the eagle eye in the theater, I think we kind of knew, you know, especially as you said, like the family said, oh, it's great, it's going to be fine. We kind of knew, okay, this film is not going to be nearly as bad. And Tarantino is going to take us in a different direction.

But he did put that little Easter egg in there for us in like the first 10 minutes of the film. So it's funny to bring that up because I, of course, totally missed that when I was watching the movie. I just thought it was like a, you know, so for people who haven't seen that, The Caprio plays a sort of a Steve McQueen-style movie star on the 1960s, May Bricknell, as the movie starts, his kind of career is imploding. He's trying to figure out how to kind of turn things around

to stay relevant at the times. And it does, it shows these parts of his prior movies in the universe. But I just figured it was just like a throwaway. Oh, yeah, I see what's the flamethrower. That's funny. Ha-ha. Like, it didn't even for a minute occur to me.

I mean, you know, it's just, oh, since we're going to spoil. The Flake-trow plays a critical role. It's a very critical role. If you ever been happier to see the flamethrower, to take it up than at the end of that movie. But yeah, I mean, I just, I was like literally,

I enjoyed the movie so much when I was watching it, but I did not know. I mean, I knew it had to be something amazing that I wasn't expecting in order to get the tape family on board, but like I still was, I still was like sitting there

in a state of dread for the entire movie, you know, still anticipating that he would somehow, anyway, so to spoil the movie, what's fun of time in Hollywood, he basically tells you the story of the Mansk called of Hollywood at that time.

That's sort of how that all intertwined and he takes it all the way up to the night of the murders but then he takes the left turn um in the history as he does it's an old friend of history and so it and so the the kid the mansum cultists who in real life culture take in the movie they they go they go they go in the house next door which which which which is leo's house um with uh with with any with with with leo's friend uh brad pitt uh and brad pitt's character uh by the way i don't know you i don't know this kevin i'm curious if you know the back story and a brad pitt character is it it just quite see this in the movie, but he explains a lot, which is basically

Tarantino's conception of him, and he's basically the most deadly man in the world at that time. So, he's like a, you know, he plays not just a war hero, but like a Griebrey, like, you know, super highly decorated, you know, basically super soldier, uh, but he's because he's become a holly most nutman. Um, and so basically the, um, you know, the, the, the, the

manse killer is basically walk exactly to the wrong house because number one, they're up against this guy who basically like, you know, spent the proceeding, whatever, you know, 20 years, you know, kill a people for America. Um, uh, you know, basically Captain America. And that, and then number two, It turns out Leo still had the flamethrower in his barrage. Well, there's also the backstory that you're not totally sure how good Cliff is.

Like there's a whole backstory of did he kill his wife, which is actually in the film and also in sort of the backstory. But like there, he is, he is, he is, you know, a deadly, as you said, like a very deadly person. But that final scene, and yeah, there's no way you can anticipate. Like even if you knew, okay, maybe it's not going to be as gruesome or there's going to be some sort of like revenge fantasy. There's no way you can anticipate how genius, like the run-up into it is, and then also the final scene, because there's this whole other thing that happens in the movie where you forget that you're watching a movie about the Mansoms. Like, you forget that you're watching this horrific, like, what it's supposed to be.

And there's a, there's like a 30-minute scene of Rick Dalton, who's the, who's sort of this, you know, aging, like he's losing his place in Hollywood. He sort of, you know, is sort of at a loss for. why he's no longer powerful, right? Like, and, and he has this moment where he stars in this, like, kind of cheesy Western with this, like, 11-year-old girl. And it's, like, a movie within a movie. And it is, like, probably the best encapsulation of, like,

what happens to actors in Hollywood. So you kind of lose track of the fact. It's like, here's Sharon Tate, and she's at the Playboy Mansion. She's dancing. She's this new generation. But here's this old generation of, like, hyper-masculine figures who can't get work. And there's, it's just a gene.

movie within a movie where the little girl says to him and it's probably like one of the most memorable lines she's like that's the best acting I've ever seen in my whole life and I mean it's like just even if they'd stop the movie there it would have been just as brilliant right but then it goes on to this other sequence where you're like oh yeah we're watching we're about to see the most gruesome you know possible like this I mean and you know I wasn't alive in 1969 but I can imagine it's like if you know if Jennifer Lawrence if it happened to Jennifer Lawrence, if it happened to Marga Roby, or Robbie, who's actually playing her, right? It would just be this horrific thing.

But you kind of forget, because there's all of these just beautiful, hilarious sequences that run up to it. You forget that you're watching a movie that's supposed to end in this horrific violence. And, of course, I'll let you continue, Mark. But it ends in a different type of horrific violence, but not female-on-female violence that characterized the Manson murders, which I think is another kind of subtext of the, of the of the film. It's just how gory and violent

the actual episode is, but you don't actually see that. So I'll let you continue, but there's a little other part of the Hollywood story that's really fascinating. Yeah, no, that's exactly right.

By the way, pop quiz, Catherine, the little girl, the little girl actress, who was she in, who was that intended to be in real life? I don't know, actually. Jody Foster.

Oh, oh, is that, oh, that's who she's supposed to be. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I don't realize it. She's not under that name, but that's basically the character's basically on Jody Foster. That makes sense. And so, and I was bringing it up because, like, she's representative of New Hollywood.

So, so, so, because so Johnny Foster was in that, in that era was like a rising busy child start. And then she, she had her breakup role in, I think, in, in taxi driver, you know, where she's just like, you know, it's like incredibly revelatory, you know, acting performance. And so she's sort of representative of the new, of the new, of the, so, quote, unquote, new Hollywood with the much more naturalistic, like the actually naturalistic acting style that took over from the much more stylized style of the 50s. 60s. And so I just bring it up because to your point, part of the story there was Rick Dalton, you know, basically trying to get out of basically making cliched, happening genre stuff, right, where he just plays the same tough guy over and over again. Well, so the running

joke up until that point is that Rick Dalton starts, started out as fear as like a tough guy movie star. And then basically, you know, over the years, like that, that archetype was kind of fading in 1969. And so he was increasingly being cast as the bad guy. And then, you know, the thing is, you know, the bad guy, you know, gets like punched, is not the guy who punches and not saying people out. He's the guy that gets punched and knocked out, and he's sort of on this number of slide. And he has absolutely no idea how to adapt itself to this new world.

And in fact, and the way the movie, the way this intersects with the other part of the movie is, you know, is literally with Roman Polanski and share a tape of them next door, you know, to his character. And he literally, he's like, oh my God, if I could just figure out a way to get invited over for like a barbecue or something, where I could just meet Roman Polanski who's like, you know, the leading kind of new Hollywood movie director of that time.

If I could just get captioned one of his movies, then I could stay relevant, you know, for the next decade. And he just had like absolutely, there was just absolutely no reason for like Roman Flasky or Shared Tate to give, to give this Rick Dalton character, you know, the time of day because he just represented the past and they represent the future. Until, of course, at the very end of the movie, you know, Rick Dalton saves, you know, saves her life. And that's the significance of him being invited over at the end of the movie is that sort of his entree to Hollywood. but having basically been taught by Jody Foster as an 11-year-old in Ashley how to act. Basically, it comes together. It's such a genius way. Anyway, yeah, so, so basically, like, the sort of macro relevance of this,

just to kind of raise the thesis is, you know, like, if the Manson murders were kind of where the cultural revolution in the 1960s went bad, then once upon a time in Hollywood is sort of the, it's sort of the fantasy or the love letter to a different America in which that didn't happen, right? And basically things kept going in a much more of a much more positive direction. But by putting on screen the alternate direction, my view is like he really highlights

how bad it was that that's not what happened. And so the tragedy of the Manson murders is not just the tragedy for the people who were killed and for their families, which was a profound tragedy. But the tragedy was like for basically for all of L.A., because like L.A., if you talked to people who were around during that period,

like things got dark in L.A. like very quickly. Like, people, people, people were so freaked out by the Manson murders. Like, they didn't know how many other serial killers running around. They didn't know how many of the cults there were. They, like, everybody all of a sudden had to, like, lock their doors. Like, people stopped going out. Like, it became like, and, and by the way, this was the beginning of the heyday of the serial killer, you know, the Ted Bundy.

And, you know, like, it was the beginning of this, like, wave of these things where people got, like, really, really seriously freaked out. And so that was the other. But then just generally in America that, you know, as I said, like, that was the beginning of the downward slide in the 70s. And so by making the what if, and positive. kind of, you know, all counterfactual so clear. To me, it sort of highlights and illustrates in maybe the way that nothing else has been able to do, kind of the darkness that actually played out in real life. Totally.

Totally. And like I went back and watched the beginning of the sequence, because it's actually a long sequence of violence. But what I remember so much, I read the reviews before, not knowing, you know, they try to not have spoiler alerts. And critics were very divided. It was like, this is so violent. This is extremely violent.

And what's funny about seeing it in the theater, which was, I'm so glad I saw it in the theater, is that the reaction from the audience, and these are, again, it's like if you've been opening weekend, these are people who, like, really wanted to see this movie or are Tarantino fans, is extreme laughter. Yes. As it is, you are laughing during the most island sequence for 20 minutes.

And what's really funny about what's happening on screen, too, is that Cliff Cliff, who's the stuntman, and again, this is a spoiler, like, turn this off, I'm going to go into detail that he takes an edible, like, or LSD. I can't remember if it's an edible or. Oh, smokes an LSD cigarette. Yes. So, so right before.

So he is like high as a kite when these guys come in, which is also like a funny part of it. And the other part that you have to, like, Tarantino is so particular about details. And so the music that is playing when they come in is actually this like psychedelic rock band. And he shows the kind of transition of the 60s through music through the entire thing, which is really important. but that scene he's listening to the Supremes Set Me Free Why Don't You Babe? Right? So it's this perfect moment of like

Set me free and these guys come in He's high and he's like Is this real? But Cliff's response is like laughter He's laughing at these women right And these women, you know, they have their knives Like they are ready to do the deed You know

And he's laughing And I think it's in some ways It's, you know, Tarantino always has sort of these, like, takes on, like, masculine violence and, you know, can you kind of, can you can't, can you can't, can you can take the power out of whatever situation happened in history by just like this extreme violence. And like, you know, it's about to happen. And there's like, I won't ruin the pit bull part. But like, there is something, or it's, let's ruin it. Let's ruin it. We're ruining. We're ruining. Like, he, he, he sixes pit bull on, on these women, right? But he, but the, would, with, watching it again, you're like, this is, it's fascinating. Because if, if, if the man since. have been met with laughter, right? Like, instead they were met with, these are the most evil. They're, you know, they're taken by the devil, right? Like, they were met with fear. And to Mark's point, like, that set off serial killers.

Like, it gave power to this extraordinary evil for decades. And I think the point of it is, like, what if Cliff, the most masculine, deadly man in the room had just been high and laughed and, like, you know, sick as pit bull on, on these, on these women who, you know, are kind of silly and high themselves? and like the whole thing had become a comedy which it turns into like 20 minutes

of just sheer hilarity like just absolute hilarity even though it's the most violent thing you've probably seen in the last several years. The retro character beats a Hindi to death with a telephone. It's just the funniest thing there.

It's like it's yeah, it's like a good and the flame thrower shows up right? Like I mean it's it is there you could not conceive of the type of violence. It meets it meets the most horrific violence that we know was coming, right? And like, that's the backstory to this, too, is like, you know what really happened. So you have this weird, and the response of, you know what actually happened, and it's so tragic. And it was women on, you know, I always think it's interesting that it was

like the Manson family, right? They called themselves family. It was a perversion of the family, and they actually killed a woman who was eight months pregnant starting a family. So it's like this horrific, that's a whole whole other narrative to this. But like the fact that it's met with even more extreme violence and at the time it was during you know it was during me too as well so it was violence against women but of course everyone wants that violence to happen because you don't

want the alternative to happen so it's this very strange movie going experience that is both delightful but also like you know a lot of mixed emotions that I think you know probably that's why I think critics were so divided on it I loved it but that's why I think critics were divided

on it yeah and then if you if you can tell us about you know one notch It's, it's, it's like, it's like the ultimate square in the form of Rick Dalton is like, you know, still putting brook cream in his hair and trying to be like, you know, kind of James Dean, tough guy, you know, when that's not what the world wants. and then, you know, basically, like I said, you know, Captain America, like an icon of the American military, you know, at the time, you know, by the way, the time of Vietnam in which, you know, the military was, you know, not, was, you know, it was not viewed at the level of respect that American culture has right today. You know, the fact that those two, you know, end up basically beating and roasting a bunch of hippies to death. It did at the height of the counterculture. It's an incredibly crowd-placing movie. And that, as you said, it kind of happened in sort of, you know, very, very close to Peak woke kind of during our culture revolution. of the last decade, like, it's, it's, I don't, I don't know if, I don't know if it's probably characterized as like a reactionary movie, but it, it, it definitely not, it was definitely not the arc, the moral arc of, of, of other attempts at arc during that time period. Totally.

Totally. And, and, and just even the, the final scene of, as you said, him getting invited over, and her sort of being blissfully unaware of this happens. I mean, that's all magical of it. Like, she had no idea that someone has this happens. And you see, like, the camera sort of pan up. and it's like this is like it just genuinely feels like this is you know in the same way than glorious bastards was a revenge drama of what could have possibly happened this is also like

the once upon a time in America's story like what could have happened and it was a weird movie going experience in 2019 to be surrounded by people who were laughing who loved it you know it kind of went against everything you were reading in the news which is that like you know no one agrees with with sort of this alternative history I mean it was it's just a brilliant film um that that yeah i'm excited there's a sequel coming right mark there is indeed there is there's a deed which is going to be and let me also say number one there's a sequel coming which you know it's going to be just incredible i'm sure uh but also um there was a there tarantino is so funny so uh you guys may both for your jean remember this but back before the

internet and even back before like DVDs of video rentals if if you like if you if you didn't see a movie when is the theater like you didn't see it and like it might show up on tv like two years later, but they would have cut all the good parts out, and they would have, you know, stuck in all the commercials. And so you, like, at this in one shot to see movie in the theater. And then if you wanted to see it again and it was out of theater, you couldn't. And so there was this, there was this genre of paperback novelizations of movies. And so what you would do is you would buy the paperback novelization.

And then you could read that as many times as you want. So, you know, I had a shot all these things that I was a kid, you know, Star Wars and all these things, you know, read them all like 14 times. And so anyway, so Tarantino being, you know, sort of a child of this era, you know, like I am, Tarantino actually wrote a paperback novelization. of the movie once upon a time in Hollywood. And he specifically wrote it as a paperback novelization. And so it came out in paperback.

And it very much as an homage to this. But of course, being turned, you know, it's it actually turns out, of course, it's not just a paperback novelization. It turns out it's like an entirely new novel. And so, and it's actually funny because it doesn't, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's sat in the same world of the movie and has, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, he doesn't even get, he doesn't care at all about, about like having the plot of the movie actually in the novel.

And so he just throws away right up front in the novel. Oh, yeah, yeah. And then Rick Dalton, like, wrote to a bunch of hippies, you know, his clearing pool that night, right? So, like, it's like the plot's not the point for the novelization. So the novelization, I think, I think it's a very few people have read it, you know, kind of just by, by virtue of how he came on with that I think, because I think people didn't know what to make of, like, literally a paper

type novelization of, like, 2022 or whatever came out. But I think he does a reasonable claim on being a Great America novel. and the reason specifically Kevin I think you enjoyed a lot because it just goes much deeper into all the themes of the you know that we're talking about and so like it goes really deep into the transformation of Hollywood that was happening at that time

you know it goes really deep into the making you know the Western show that happens inside the movie which is actually a real show called Lancer it was actually a real show with that you know with that setup and with those actors and it goes much deeper into all the characters and it goes deeper into the Manson family and so it's yeah it's really amazing

And by the way, I should also say, the movie does have a scene in which it has left ambiguous as to whether or not Cliff Booth killed his wife. By the way, let me just say, the wife played by Rebecca Dayhart, who just like, I think she's in a movie for like 30 seconds, and she almost steals the movie. Like, she's just hysterically funny.

And she plays, like, the meanest, like, wife in the world. She's just, like, hectoring and, like, screaming at Bradford. And they're literally on a fishy boat, Brad Pitt has a spear gun in his lap. And it's sort of, and in the movie, it's like set up as basically, you know, there was this fear gut accident, you know, following this argument and did Brett did actually, actually deliberately kill his wife or not. And of course, in the novelization, it makes

very fair. Yes. He, in fact, yes. I think it's in the novel. I think it's in the, I think it's in the clip booth killed his wife and got away with it. And then I think that I think he says the novel, he says, and that was one of the three times that Cliff Booth committed murder got away with it. So anyway, anyway, for those of you who have only seen the movie, it turns it turns out the clipoof character actually yes as a real dark side and yes the hippies picked the wrong house stuff to stumble into and and so is the we're talking offline about how it's you know there's some relevance to today is the connection that you know the 2010s to some people was seen as a sort of glorious march towards uh you know progress and then you know whether

it's the 2020 Floyd riots or more recently the luigi you know made you own murder or the murder of Charlie Kirk, there's kind of this moment of, oh, my God, that this thing is gone off there. Is that that kind of the, yeah? So I would say, whichever side of the political and social spectrum you're on, like, the world that we live in today is a much darker version of what everybody thought we were going to be living it. I mean, like, so for people who were like 100% on board with like the social president, so back up a second, there to your point.

So, like, I think there's a very direct analogy of, let's call it, 1964 to 1977 or something with the reelection of Richard Nixon. Like that culture revolution that happened during the 60s, kind of the hippie Vietnam kind of revolution, I think what we in America been through the last decade is sort of another version of that. Like I think we went through our version of that. It started around, I would date it to like 2015, 2014. And then, you know, it basically, that era sort of ended November, November, November, 2024. You know, obviously if you're on the right, you're like, oh, my God, thank God that's over.

And, you know, the world can move on. If you're on the left, of course, you're like, oh, my God, what just happened? And how did, you know, how did the revolution go so bad? But that is precisely what happened at the end of the revolution in the 1960s. And specifically, I mentioned in 1972. So Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968, and it was like a hard-fought race and very dramatic Minnesota, right, but that he was re-elected in 1972 in a landslide. Like, I usually was together as like a 49 state landslide or some crazy thing.

Like, it was just like an overwhelming landslide. So it was like the American people basically rose up and basically said, yeah, no more of this, it's over. And so, you know, we, I mean, that, I mean, that. The echoes are just like profound of how this played out. And, you know, and there are echoes, right? It's not exactly comparable, you know, in Iraq and Vietnam, you know, play different roles and so forth.

And the economy, you know, has developed in different ways. And, you know, Trump and Nixon are different people and so forth. But, and the social movements are different, you know, in times of change. But still, like, there was a cultural revolution. It was, you know, either glorious or terrible for some period of time and then get ended, right? It was just like a sequence of events happened where just like it was over and you're out of the other side and you're in a new world. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and then, and I, and I would like, that's exactly what that, that's exactly the process kicked off at 69 of the

mass and murders, and then sort of bookended to the 72 with Nix's re-election, and then kind of newtys, like, that, I, I would argue, like, that, that's precisely the same kind of transition that we're going through right now. Um, and I think it's either, it's either thrilling and horrifying people in a very similar way, um, that, uh, that the end of the 60s, uh, either thrilled or horrified people. Yeah, Catherine, would you agree with that? I would. I would. And I also, since you mentioned Vietnam, I want to transition to the best Vietnam War film ever made. Okay, this is, this, this is, everything we've set up until now is milk toast as compared to the extremely controversial plane the Catherine is about to make.

Please, go for up. It is, it is, it is by far the best Vietnam War film ever made. And of course, it incorporates every Vietnam War film ever made, including Deer Hunter, full metal jacket, you know, once, or born on the 4th of July, Apocalypse Now, the best Vietnam War film ever made is Tropic Thunder. But it also happens to be one of the best films about Hollywood. Actually, I would actually say that once upon a time in Hollywood, while it is incredible film, is more about America.

But Tropic Thunder is also about America in different ways and reveals a lot about America, but is by far the best Hollywood film ever made. I'll let Mark talk about why that is. Well, so let's date. That's all his data. Tropic Thunder was what year? It was 2008, which is actually very important because I think one of the things that people forget is that 2008 was also the year where we had a POW from the Vietnam War running for office against the first black president in history. And that is in very important context for all of the themes dealt with inside of Tropic Thunder, which of course is a comedy.

It's a satire, but it satirizes everything in the kind of before times 2008, but I think that is a very important subtext to what came out during an election year where those two themes were on display. But I'll let Mark get into the summary, since it's also one of his favorite films. Well, it is, although I'm going to defer, so, because, you know, I think it's, I think it's a hysterific fun, you know, it's maybe the funniest movie, funny as Hollywood movie the last 25 years or something like. It's just, it's just like an incredibly entertaining movie. And just for people to just have a sense of like how much times have changed, like the most, I mean, there's many amazing things about it,

but one of the most amazing things about it is, you know, the great actor Robert Donnie Jr. plays the entire movie of Blackface. And not only plays the entire movie of Blackface, like I would say extraordinarily commits for the bit. He's a Method actor, played a Method actor.

So, yes. The entire movie in Method playing another Method actor, you know, playing an actor and a type of blackface. Again, which to your point on, once upon time, in Hollywood, when the film was first announced, this was known that Robert Downey Jr. was going to be playing an actor in blackface. And as you can imagine,

it was the same thing that happened with Once Upon Time in Hollywood, where it was like, in the same way that the Tate family was terrified of what would happen in the film, there was a whole kind of, you know, terror of what is going to, like, Robert Danny Jr., like he's destroying his career. Like, who does Ben Stiller think he is doing this movie, right? Like, no one actually knew the backstory or how it would be satirizing, Hollywood actors who will go through

any extreme length to win an Oscar. But when you get into the film, it is handled so beautifully and delicately. And actually, I was reading about sort of how they handled it when they were producing it, which was that they invited, you know, a number of members of the NACP. They invited, you know, a number of different,

like, very thoughtful critics and said, you have to see this film first and see. And it was, again, the same sort of thing where it's like everyone saw it first. And they said, don't worry, it's perfect, right? It's hilarious. I'll let you continue, but like they handled it. Wait, wait, did they have to apologize in the 2010s?

I remember Jimmy Kimmel had to apologize for Blackface or one of these people. Did they get away with it? Interesting point. So they didn't, so when it came out, it was so clearly satirizing white actors who were trying to win an Oscar, right? So it was clearly satirizing everyone. It was not, it was, you know, it was sort of universally beloved, so much so that Robert Downey Jr. was nominated for an Oscar, which is a whole other,

backstory to how they made that happen because it was kind of a continuation of the movie that they, as a joke, petitioned the academy, you know, said, for your consideration, and the academy actually nominated him for an Oscar for the role. So it was so, it was so beloved, like, what he did and how, how brilliant the role was that no one cared. But I believe it was like 2017 or 2018 when this sort of like new crop of young people came through journalism and said, like, this is horrible. They tried to sort of cancel him. I'm like, you might know Mark better how he handled it. But, like, it clearly, they did not cancel Robert Downey Jr.

For doing a satirization of the role he played. So just to fill this in and then we'll get to the, I'm going to get to the, the Vietnam aspects of this, but Vietnam War Movie aspects to this. But yeah, so just specifically what happened was, correct me if I have this wrong. Robert Donny Jr., a white American actor, plays a white Australian actor,

who is a method actor, who I think was sort of loosely inspired by Daniel Day-Lewis. as sort of a, you know, sort of that kind of, you know, super elite. You know, there's a couple scenes where you see, where you see, where you see Robert out of black face, but dressed off with, as, uh, dressed up as the, as the Australian actor who like has, like, I forget what's like transmissive green eyes or something. It's this very striking, striking look and like this very plummy Australian accent. And so it's a white American actor in real life playing a white Australian actor,

playing a Southern black man in black face for the entire. On top of that, I believe Robert Downey often improvises throughout his movies. And I think a fair amount of the, I think a fair amount of the portrayal was him on the spur of the moment, which is fairly incredible when you see it because he fully en half is the world. And then, of course, he's actually in the movie. He's actually, he's in the movie, inside the movie. He's in a platoon with, of course, an actual black guy. It was a young black actor whose name I can't recall.

But he just like, there's a press having this. It was successful to him It's a brilliant Like the way they play off each other is brilliant His name in the film is Al Pacino But Al Pacino He's a rapper It's a rapper who becomes an actor

Yes And there's a So whole other Go ahead, sorry Oh no no I was going to say There's a whole other through line there Of his role

Because I think one of the things That everyone remembers of the film Is they have the fake trailers before the film starts And he is Al Pacino The rapper and he's selling a drink that he calls booty sweat. And it's so funny about, like, how brilliant this film is

because not only, like, not only do they satirize Hollywood in the film, they were, like, the first Barbenheimer. Like, what they did, they're like, we're going to market this in so many funny ways. They did incredible things before and after the film. But one of the things that they did was they made booty sweat into an actual drink, marketed it through the entire Oscar petition. Like, they went so far. I mean, the only film that's done this is, as, as,

exceptional as Tropic Thunder was Barbie. But they figured out how to turn every aspect of this film into marketing genius. The other smart thing that they did, by the way, one of the actors that Ben Stiller plays this guy named Tug Speedman, who is based on a dumb Tom Cruise. His name is Tug Speedman, right? Like, where did they get that name? It's Tom Cruise. But they also have Tom Cruise in the movie as the producer who's based on Harvey Weinstein, less, I can't remember, less Grossman. Les Grossman, yes.

And so, but they didn't want anyone to know Tom Cruise was in the film. So they actually sued anyone, any of the paparazzi, who took pictures of him before, because they wanted people to come to the theater and not know that Tom Cruise was in it. And, of course, he, like, wrote his entire role. Like, he, to your point in improv, like, he improvised that entire role and wrote it.

Like, it was kind of hit Tom Cruise's brainchild. I think they originally offered him something else and he's like, no, no, no, I want to play Harvey Weinstein. And it is genius, but they did so many things to make sure that the entire sort of cult of the movie outside of the movie was like Hollywood produced. Where you, to Mark's point, you have this method actor, playing a method actor who is trying to get an ostrich through his method acting

who ultimately ends up getting nominated for the Oscar, losing to Heath Ledger, the year that Ledger died posthumously. when it was awarded to him but it's like they could not have it is a 20 year project that's the other that's the very interesting thing about this was like Ben Stiller's been working on this

since the 80s and it was just that year where they were finally able to get it made and it is this brilliant commentary on all of Hollywood and we can get into the Vietnam stuff too because I think it's also commentary on that but it's it is the best Hollywood film ever made

even in the fact that they were able to successfully sway the Oscars Right. Well, it was also, Catherine your point, it was also the re-side of the Tom Cruise image issues at the time because this was after the sort of run of controversy around him and Scientology and his personal life and all those things. And there was, so this run of very bad bliss and a lot of people in the industry were worried that he was not going to be a bankable movie star anymore.

And I think that this role in this movie was basically his recovery from that, which was pulled off absolutely perfectly. And of course, he then went on to be an even bigger movie started before. Totally. Yeah, so it's a great career resurrection in the middle of this. Yeah. And then, yeah, just in terms of, like, how much times have changed or, you know, somebody once said that the past is a, is a foreign planet or another country. Is, yeah, like, you had an American actor being nominated for an Oscar, for a character

performing a black face in 2008. Directed by a Hollywood filmmaker, who is obviously a genius, but, you know, within 10 years was like, you know, Ben Stowe subsequently became one of the wokenest Hollywood figures, you know, in the years that follow, like, you know, all through the last. decade, like, Benzschiller has been like, you know, to the left of Che Guevara on every social and political issue. And so, you know, I don't know. I've never met him. I've had great admirer on his art. But, like, I wonder how much of his shift to the far left politically and socially was a reaction having made this movie. Well, and the other thing is everyone focuses on Robert Downey Jr. But there are like at least

four other untouchable things that happen in that film. So the disability advocates, actually when the film came out, the people who were most upset in 2008, were the disability advocates because of the commentary on what's, I believe it's common on what's eating Gilbert grape, right? Never, like, I'll just say. Well, and Forrest, Forrest Cup, yes, yes. And Raymond, in Raymond, but yeah, Simple Jack. Simple Jack, yes.

So the famous line that is said is, and again, I'm quoting the film, never go full retard, which was okay to say in 2008, except for the disability advocates, who were very upset about it. And of course, they were sort of on the fringe in 2008, but that was actually the thing

that Ben Stiller had to apologize for because they didn't test the film on Simple Jack, but it was commentary from Robert Downey Jr. in Blackface saying everybody knows and then saying the line, right? Because Tug Speedman doesn't play it as he should.

He does the full Leo DiCaprio, what's eating Gilbert Grape sort of like, you know, full on, right? has to be a rainmaker. But there's two other things that happen. So the other thing that I think people didn't realize is that it is so much of a commentary on Vietnam War film, because a lot of Vietnam War memoirs in later years have been proven to be completely disingenuous, right? So it's like people who said they went to Vietnam, didn't go to Vietnam. And so in the storyline and the film, the guy whose memoir, Tropic Thunder, the movie is actually based on is a member of the

Coast Guard who never got sent to Vietnam who worked for the Sanitation Department. Right? And that's like a whole theme in the movie. And so there's this like brilliant commentary also on like, you know, veterans issues. And I think some veterans groups were upset about it. There were also people who were very upset with Tom Cruise's portrayal. And it was, you know, it was before we kind of all knew who he was portraying and everything. But there were people who were very upset that they felt that that was the stereotype. So like pretty much every character, like there was there was people who were. And again, these were fringes. It wasn't like, mass commentary on this, but they're, like, they managed to insult, like, every protected group in a way that, like, everyone kind of was like, well, yeah, but it's, it's satire, right? So it was a totally different time in America, but it wasn't just, you know, focus on race relations. I mean, it was on, you know, we had a, again, we had a Vietnam POW running for president that year. And basically a mockery, like, the greatest mockery of Vietnam film ever made.

So in some ways, it's like this film was just, like, so. perfectly time for the era we were living in. Well, we still have to this day let's not name names on a otherwise a fun podcast. There are a sitting United States politicians in serious offices who like literally faked Vietnam War records. Like that

that's not over. Like that's actually still the case. And so to your point, like you know, there were many people obviously could serve very honorable to Vietnam and then there were people who like made up completely fake stories and wrote them the rest of their career and like that, you know, yeah. So the movie takes like it's your point.

Among other things, takes direct aim at that. And I believe the guy wears a hook, the whole film, which was his hand. I mean, like, this movie is so brilliant. It's so brilliant. And the levels of commentary just are remarkable to this day. Yes, yes. And so, yes, yes, cute, yes.

I mean, just like, so, yeah, maybe this bookends the previous, previous conversation of just like, yes. This is clearly made before the culture, before our version of the Cultural Revolution. And so it's like a, it's like, like an ancient artifact like I was saying only now are we reemerging into a world

in which a movie like that could be made like a movie like that for the last probably what 13 years or something would have been totally off limits and we're coming out into a world now where movies like that can get paid again yeah Jimmy Kimmel's not going to bring back the man show

her return to his his roots for people who follow yes for people who don't get the reference for anybody who followed the recent Jimmy Kimmel sort of affair and all of the outrage

it is whereas going on YouTube and just, yeah, looking at clips from a Jimmy Kimball show 20 years ago which was literally called The Man Show and just to get a sense of the the long and twisty road that some of our highest, most famous public figures have followed. And also a tale of two comedians, right? Because

it's him and Adam Carolla, right? And it's like their careers have detoured dramatically since the show. Yes, that's right. Two other films we wanted to discuss were Oppenheimer and Fight Club. So let's start with, let's start with, let's start with Oppenheimer just because it's, it's more, it's more recent. So I will make the case.

So I'm a, you know, the enormous Christopher Nolan fan. I've seen all those movies. I love all those movies. I think they're really tremendous. You know, I think that, you know, I say this, I think Tenet is one of the best movies ever seen. And like I, I, I sat through Tenant with a giant smile on my face, the entire movie. Like, I just thought that was just like absolute magic.

Obviously, I love deception. I love many of his movies. But I think Oppenheimer was like an incredibly well-made movie and had, you know, incredible performances and was like, you know, put together really well. It was, you know, tremendously interesting to watch. I will argue that it did not reach our level of capital A art. I think it actually quite badly fell short on sort of, I would say, morality and, and ultimately in importance to our culture. But yeah, I mean, they happen to give my feel on that. But let me just start by say, Catherine, would just out of the gate, would you agree with me on that?

Would you like to take the pro side that Oppenheimer was greater? No, I agree with you, but I probably, I probably concur, like I probably have different reasons than you as to why I didn't think it worked. And I should preface it with, like, I had hyped this movie so much where my expectations might have been so ridiculously high

that when I finally saw it, I was like, meh, but I do think it's interesting. Robert Downey Jr. was all, he won the Academy Award finally for Oppenheimer. He deserved it for Tropics Thunder. He was fantastic. in the movie, but I will say he deserved it for Tropic Thunder. And if not for Heath Ledger, he would have won it for Tropic Thunder.

And I feel like that would have been really the role he should have won it for, but he was fantastic in Oppenheimer as well. So to your point, like, there were many good performances. My sort of criticism is probably different than yours, but it probably has a lot more to do with, like, the actual sort of storytelling and filmmaking than the actual content of the work. Okay, got it. Yeah.

So I would say, so for people who haven't seen it, we're going to spoil it. Robert, Robert Downing plays a real-life guy named Lewis Strauss, who was a, it was a very high-ranking, like, sort of important person of the 1950s, 1960s in the government, and ended up, I forget the exact role, but basically ended up overseeing Oppenheimer having a security clearance stripped and basically being booted out of the military industrial complex after, you know, basically leading the creation of the atomic bomb.

And the movie kind of goes through that whole story. And, you know, it's a fantastic performance. All the, I mean, look, all the performances in the movie were fantastic. Tilly Murphy was just outstanding as Oppenheimer. And then, I think it's Benny Safty, one of the Saffty brothers, played Edward Teller. And like, almost just stole the movie just with that portrayal. And again, you know, a real person, the creator, but later of the creator of the hydrogen bomb. He's in anyway, so fantastic performance, this fantastic direction.

I will argue, but my critique of the movie, though, it involves the following claim, which is the Louis Strauss is actually the hero of the movie. Yes, maybe go into that history so people understand, because that is definitely not the takeaway from the film. Yes, that is not what the film intent. You know, the film intended, I think the film intensity of Catherine would agree with this. The film intended to contrast basically a great man Oppenheimer to basically an aspirate to greatness who, you know, fell badly short in the Louis Strauss character, who sort of brought the great man low and in a fundamentally unfair way. And then it sort of, the movie sort of sets up both Oppenheimer and actually also specifically Albert Einstein as sort of the key moral authorities. of the era with respect to use of nuclear weapons,

both claims of which I believe are, like, deeply incorrect on substance. And this is my critique of the movie is not an mass execution or any of the performances. My critique is the morality of the movie, I think, is very badly upside down. And it's upside down in a way that kind of flatters our correct politics, but, like, is very badly upside down in terms of what actually happened at the time. And so the movie basically tells the story, of course, Robert Offenheimer, the sort of person who ran the Manhattan Project, created the atomic bomb, which was then, you know,

a story where he gets credit for, you know, helping to end World War II, you know, when the U.S. drop, you know, the only two uses of the atomic bomb in wartime, you know, to date, where, you know, the U.S. dropped an deputy bomb on Japan twice in 1945. And, you know, and there's even still to the state debate about this. But, you know, generally accepted history, I think, is that that, you know, that ended the Pacific Theater conflict, you know, sooner than it would have it. It prevented the need for a land invasion of Japan, you know, conceivably, you know, save like a million miles or something like that. Now, by the way, it was dropping to Tod Obama on two civilian cities. Right. So again, you know, like the morality of the time was, you know, quite a bit different than, you know,

than maybe ours today. But, but anyway, so that's kind of history of it. And then, you know, famously, the Manhattan Project was sort of this assembly of sort of the finest minds. In America, many of them, by the way, were, you know, refugee, you know, not often, I'm, I'm in a director actually is a, is a, in a movie, in reality. And in a movie is German, Jewish, whose family had arrived much earlier but then a lot of the other key members of the Manhattan Project kind of been one of the great twists of irony

were Hungary Jewish refugees from basically the Nazi kind of rampaged through Europe who came to the U.S. and basically helped arm up the U.S. of which Edward Teller was an example of that. And so anyway, so the movie tells us kind of an amazing story of the Manhattan Project

but specifically in the arc of Oppenheimer I guess I'd say that the conventional, let me back up for a sec. I think the first half of the movie I think is actually quite historically grounded and I think has, like I, at least, I agree to this interpretation of history. And so it is the following them. So the first half, and I think the movies may be a little bit schizophrenic and I should give it a little more credit than I was. But like the first half of the movie is actually a,

it's one of the only recreations on film of what American elite culture and society and American research establishment of kind of the leading, experts at the time. The nation 20s and 30 is like how thoroughly saturated that that world was communist. And specifically it sort of recreates, you know, this sort of the, there's actually a joke in the movie. There's a line in the movie that sort of one of these jokes is not really a joke, which is the joke as, you know, because a lot of the movie takes place is set up as at UC Berkeley. And there's sort of a joke in the movie, which is like, you know, well, you know, it's so and so on the Berkeley faculty, you know, as a communist, somebody else will say, yes, like, after

Berkeley faculty are communists. Like, every. like everybody knows that like it's just completely taken for granted and of course you know the the politics in that aside the issue becomes okay now they're working on a classified weapons program um you know the u.s is kind of variously at odds with not just Germany but also with Soviet Russia um and you know there's this very big concern you know we're you know the this effort is is inventing this you know super weapon uh and there was a very high degree of concern that the the secret of the atatic bomb we're going to you know just walk their way out the out the door from woselamos that we're going to end up you know bad people's hands you know and one fear, obviously, was they'd end up in Hitler's hands, but another fear was they would end up Stalin's hands. And by the way, spoiler alert, that's exactly what happened. So in fact, the nuclear sequence will walk right out the door and, you know, and basically the both the concepts of the atomic bomb and that actually, the specific wiring instructions for the atomic bomb were actually walking right out the back door of Los Alamos into into Soviet's hands and Stalin got the bomb very quickly after that. And it was directly derived from the work that

actually happened on the Manhattan Project. And so it turned out to Manhattan Project, like, it really was riddled with time to despise. And there's these famous names in history, like the Roosevelt Burgess, that you can go through and read about it if you want. But like, the fears of all of the people who are worried about this were actually correct. It is actually what happened. By the way, there's a character in the movie Boris Pash, who is sort of a security officer at the Manhattan Project, if both in real life and in the movie, in the movie, he sort of portrayed

as this white guy with basically essentially a stick up his butt like this like guy who's like, you know, like constantly like, you know, cross-examining and not trusted the scientists and thinks that I'm a higher, Oppenheimer is probably a spy and the whole thing. He's kind of portrayed as this like over-the-top, you know, kind of thing. But like, if you go, if you read his Wikipedia entry of like what his wife's story had been up until that point, he's another one of these guys were just like, yeah, just this incredibly impressive backstory of life service to the country and fight a communist. And then, you know, and then like, you know, whether he was right about Oppenheimer

we could talk about. But like, he was right that like, TILA's almost withdrawal of God in his spies. And this is going to lead to catastrophe, you know, with Stalin getting the bomb. And then, you know, the Strauss character was also very worried about that. And again, you know, outside of whether he was right about Oppenheimer, per se, he was, he was right about the broader issue. And so, so that is what actually, that is what actually happened.

And so, like, all of the security concerns that are kind of a setup to what, you know, is sort of portrayed as the persecution of Robert Oppenheimer, like they were all completely legitimate security concerns. And in fact, the worst case scenario actually did happen. Like, all the secrets like walk right out the door went straight to Stalin. The first Soviet, we now know this. first Soviet atomic bomb was wire-for-wire compatible with the U.S. Nagasaki bomb, right? So they got literally the wearing nitrous. And, you know, for people

who have read about nuclear weapons, like, it's actually very hard to detonate a nuke and they have to be wired in a very specific white. It's like you can't, they're very difficult to set off. And like, the Soviet spies on the Manhattan Project literally, like, transferred that information to Russia and nuclear power. And so anyway, like, within that, there's this arc of basically Oppenheimer, you know, was he or was he not? And there's one arc, actually, which is was he or was he not himself a Soviet asset, which is it's generally viewed historically that he wasn't literally a Soviet asset,

although I think there are still questions around that, in fairness, and we can talk about that. But then there's just this broader thing, which is even if he wasn't, like was he trustworthy and could he be relied upon? And then there was a specific thing that actually happened, which the movie presents a version of, that I think is not, my understanding history is not correct,

but which is Oppenheimer basically worked his butt off to deliver the atomic bomb for the purpose of beating Germany in Japan. But then immediately upon that happening, the U.S. weapons program shifted into making the hydrogen bomb, which was going to be the big one that was going to be used ultimately, you know, ultimately was going to be used to the Cold War, you know, as a deterrent against the Soviet Union, you know, as a project led by Edward Teller. And the accusation always was Oppenheimer deliberately slow roll the development of the hydrogen bomb. Like he tried to prevent that from happening. At first, the, you know, and, you know, Oppenheimer's version of the story is it's one thing to like have a new thing could take out a city to end a war. There's another thing that had a new thing that could take out the planet.

You know, and so like, you know, should we really be doing this? But there's another version of the story, which is you were completely in favor of beating Germany and Japan. And then, but the minute it came to beating the Soviet Union, you know, you got cold feet. Hmm. You know, isn't that interesting, right? That that that's the thing that you didn't want to have happen. And then there's just the reality that, like, Oppenheimer's background and political activities and, like, all of the people around him, including his wife and his girlfriend and his brother were actual, like,

I don't believe this to be the case. I think is wife, his girlfriend, and his brother were all actual communists, like actual capital C. Carcary communist. And then Alpenheimer himself was like embroiled to communism and it's sort of communist, you know, sort of adjacent organizations, you know, his entire life. He's not known ever have been a member of the Communist Party. Although, again, there's, there's ampeduity there because the Soviets had a practice of having their best placed assets actually never become members of Communist Party because, of course, they were trying to protect him against exactly the kind of persecution that Alpenheimer got, got leveled against him. Anyway, so in the movie, ultimately, his security clearance gets stripped, and he sort of resigns of disgrace. The movie paints this as like a great act of moral heroism on his part, where basically he won a credit for the little bomb, but he didn't want the big bomb to happen and certainly didn't want to have anything to do with it. And look, he's dead.

They're all dead. Like, you know, I don't know that we'll ever know, like, what lay in their hearts, but there are very interesting questions around this. And then there's the, and then there's my most stinging indictment of the movie, which is Einstein was the exact opposite of immoral exemplar. Einstein was Stalinist. Like, Einstein was like a full-on, like, Einstein was pro-Stolic. Like, not even just pro-communist, it was actually, like, pro-Stalin.

And Einstein thought, but, like, American democracy was, like, not going to cut it. And, like, we clearly needed to get to communist dictatorship. And there's a book that goes through this called When Reason Goes a Holiday that came out a few years ago. It kind of goes through all of Einstein's writings and speeches and kind of reconstructs this history. And so the movie kind of presents Oppenheimer and Einstein as, like, the adults.

And especially Einstein is, like, the moral adults in the room. to a degree that I just think is like basically at this point bizarre. And the reason is bizarre is because, you know, the whole thing is set up of like, oh, my God, what if the atomic bomb destroys the world? Oh, my God, you know, this whole thing and all politics evolved in that, so the ending and so forth. But like we're sitting here 80 years later. And the thing that we know today, and I don't know that anybody would choose to have

the events play out this way and maybe the world would be better without the bomb or whatever. But like, what we know today is World War III didn't happen. And so basically like everybody, everybody in sort of the military political establishment in 1945 kind of took it for granted that there was going to be World War III with Soviet Union at some point and it was going to be a land war in Europe and around the world

and it was going to kill probably in the order of 200 million people and it was just going to be absolutely devastating and like in any other era like of sort of geopolitics like that almost certainly would have happened given how tens of it got especially in the 60s and 70s

and like literally it didn't happen like World War III is the dog that didn't bite and the reason World War III didn't happen is sort of I think fairly obvious which is mutually assured destruction right that the fact that both had nukes basically meant that neither side to go to war with the other and that resulted in a cold war but not a hot war so i you know i think if you kind of stack up oppenheimer and teller and these

guys you kind of say you know by by building bombs that could destroy the world they prevent it at least one you know major world war is yes you know by the way it's not many uh and by the way the existence of nukes may prevent another world war for 500 years right you know we don't know yet but like you know that that mutually assured destruction is is still in effect they may be they may be they may be They may be causing us to not have a hot war with China, right? There's the fact that both the U.S. and China had nukes. And so anyway, so, and by the way, that's all debatable, and you can argue that, but, like, that's the argument. That's the argument that ought to happen, like, especially with what we know today.

And I just thought by Moody, like, I thought the movie just, like, really cheated on the morality of it. Because it kind of presented this, this guy to slam dunk if the nuke was bad and that these people were bad and the whole thing was bad and the old thing was bad and that Einstein was like a, sorry, that both Einstein and Oppenheimer were moral heroes in some extent, kind of trying to line up against this. And I just thought that that really cheated the audience. I think you and I are much closer on our critique of it. My sense is very similar to yours that it started out very strong, right? Like the portrayal in Berkeley, like was a very interesting, you know, like you kind of, you saw this complex figure and complex character. And then there's this whole middle section on the Manhattan Project that kind of culminates

in what I would say is like incredible, like visuals and sound. Like actually, like the movie excels in both score and sound. And if you saw it in a theater, you were like, the sound editing is like the thing that won the Oscar, right? I think they won 10 Oscars. I mean, they won everything. But it's like sound editing and score, like just incredible movie making. And then to use your word schizophrenic, like the third part, which is all about, you know,

Robert Johnny Juniors' character being like a villain, it sort of ends with this, you know, there's this brilliant scene that I think everyone remembers where they show him giving a speech to all the people at Los Alamos. and then they show, like, him envisioning bodies in, you know, in Hiroshima, right? And you kind of see the juxtaposition. You see him sort of losing his sort of, you know, conviction that he did the right thing. And I feel like if they had just stopped the movie there, it would have been the commentary on, like, okay, like we don't really understand his legacy. But instead, they had to tie it up with, it was almost like, you know, for writers and artists, like if you don't know how to end something, you kind of tie things up with neat bows that have nothing to do with,

thing that happened before, and it felt like the third section on the security clearance and on him being a hero was almost like the filmmaker's apology. Like, actually, no, no, I'm going to cite, I'm actually going to paint this for everyone inside that he was actually a good man. And there's no sort of moral ambiguity about this figure. Like, he was actually a good man. And actually, the real villains are the national security hawks and the people in Washington and the bureaucrats. And like, and then it was just this sort of portrayal of, you know, the evil bureaucracy coming for the beautiful scientist. And it sort of mimicked, I think, also a conversation that was happening in

2023 when it came out, which is all of these great AI scientists basically saying, oh, well, no, AI is actually going to kill us all. And, you know, I know this because I'm an expert. It was like the same sort of thing. And I kind of felt like that was also the sort of language of the end of the film is like, no, no, it's normal for people who build incredible things to, like, actually regret their innovation. And it just felt like way too buttoned up for a film that has a little.

lot more complexity and that if they had just ended it at hour two, it would have been masterpiece. Yeah, if you wanted to conform to present immorality, like very badly. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And so anyway, so that's my like long extended argument for why Louis Strauss was actually the hero of the movie. But he was correct. Oppenheimer could not be trusted. Oppenheimer needed to be rejected from the project. Also, Lewis Strauss has shown the movie as being very jealous of Einstein, but if you squint, you could say he also had Einstein's number. Indian Einstein was not to be trusted which was 100% true. And then, yeah, Catherine, to your point, like,

like, if, again, it goes exactly right, what you just said up, the comparison of AI, like, if you read the history of those people at that time, specifically people like Oppenheimer, you realize, yeah, the people who invent the technology have no special moral claim. They have no special predictive power for the consequence of the technology,

and they have no basis for a superior moral claim on the implications of the technology. And I will say this, the movie, you know, the movie being made by geniuses, like there was a scene in the movie that actually did kind of hit that, which was, which was based in a real life thing that happened, which was

Oppenheimer after the war visited Harry Truman in the White House. And basically, and this is sort of in the histories, in the real world histories, Oppenheimer basically went to Truman essentially basically confessed enormous guilt for having built atomic bomb and for having, you know, for the U.S. having dropped it on Japan. And actually in real life,

Truman is, I forget the exact quote, but it's in the Truman biographies. You know, Truman basically said it basically, you know, basically basically got him out of his office as fast as possible. told us chief of staff, like, I think the exact line was never let that weepy son of a bitching here again. And then I think the line of the movie is based on something Truman apparently actually said, which was, you know, Robert, you didn't make the decision to drop the bomb. It's not on you. I made the decision. Right. Right. Which is like, which is like an incredibly powerful thing, which is the duly elected commander in chief of the country made that decision as he should have. the scientist does not have the moral authority

inside how the technology is used it's the it's our you know in our system of government that the commander chief has that authority you know in our elected representatives and so like to the movie's enormous credit it did include that it did show that and again like in my fantasy cut of the movie

that's the end of the movie so they kind of nodded that but like I said they then they want them off the hook at the end shall we close with fight club fight club well we could spend an entire we could spend

hours on just fight club and we probably should at some point I would just say about fight club fight club's into me it's like I think it's I think it's 100% true art with capital A I think it's amazing I think it's definitely going to stand the test of time you know already is it's one of those movies and it's it's one of those movies that has that characteristic we talked about

last time where like if you watched it the week it came out versus a year later versus five years later versus 10 years later versus 20 years versus 30 years later like it has new meanings as our society evolves and it's got and you can kind of you can at any at any kind of point in time you can kind of use it as a prism on our society um it's it's it's it's amazing in retrospect i guess my my sort of social political kind of kind of analysis of it would be like it was clearly intended as a lifting movie at the time because it was sort of it was sort of um and you know

and the novel that you know the famous novel that it's based on you know and it's sort of this you know almost like what was it remember the original like it was the sort of left-wing anti-capitalism of that era like left-wing anarchism a little bit like that the 90s version of like Luigi leftism or something where it's like capitalism is this

basically this horrible right-wing machine that's like crushing everybody's spirits and of course in the movie Eddorton place you know it's sort of an office drone who just like effescates his life and you know has no future in my case himself and you know

ends up doing all the things that you know kind of play out in the movie which you know and then by the way the movie culminates it basically the destruction of capitalism you know basically what does it eat he takes down the buildings containing.

I think it's like all the, what is it, all the bank records or credit card records to kind of, you know, wipe the slate clean and start, start the economy, society over again. So at the time, it's just like, wow, that's like a really left wing message.

And of course, it's, you know, it's like, you know, David Fincher and it's Edna or Brad Pitt. It's like one of the best, most entertaining, you know, most captive 80 movies ever made. It's phenomenal. But like, it's fundamentally a left wing. You watch this today and you're just like,

wow, it's like ultra, ultra, ultra, right wing. Because it's a, to start with, it's a white guy. right um right and so they're like it's literally you view it today and you're like wow it's you know it's it's you know the stereotype would be it's a right you know it's a it's a white you know it's a privileged white male in cell uh you know basically right uh you know with like every advantage of the world who said you know nevertheless has built up this persecution complex right and you just so for today's lines you just like an ultra right wing movie uh and then by the way the sort of argument the movie makes about why capitalism is like the great you know atomization of society and like nobody has any type anything and people are just like interchangeable clogs in the great, you know, kind of, you know, in the great kind of machine of modernity, you know, they kind of put in this assembly line through complete meaningless until they die and like all concept of like family, community is like

completely ruptured and like capitalism is like, you know, basically the machine that does that, you know, neoliberal capitalism is the machine that does that. Like sitting here today, that's a Reitman critique. And so, and so I probably should name names, but I did talk to somebody who was involved in the making of the movie. I said, I don't want to, it was a, I don't want to represent his. his view is what I, specifically my name, but I talked to somebody who made the movie, and I laid up my theory that it was a left movie at the time and as a writing movie,

and this person basically said, oh, no, he's like, it's very clear in the movie that at the end, you know, that he greatly regrets what he's doing. Like, you know, he, like, has, you know, he's filled of regret. Like, it's a very, you know, kind of sad, tragic ending. And I was like, oh, well, if you just, like, used AI to just go in there and tweak the final scene of, of, of the Ed Norton character standing, you know, watching the building to him down. And if you just tweak the final scene to where he would have, like, a slight little smile on his face, like all of a sudden like the entire movie becomes like this you know basically ultra right wing can start to finish um anyway i'll pause there i just i just go to say whichever way you interpret it like i think

that movie definitely is definitely are i think it's amazing i think it'll i think people will be watching it and assessing it you know 100 years from now yeah to bring it back to the original thesis of this podcast monitoring the situation that's going on the internet um what went viral this week related to fight club was the PSAs that brad pitt and edward norton put out before the movie came out theaters. And if you have, I won't, this is one thing I won't spoil, but it was going viral. Like, why don't we make PSAs about like staying silent in the theater like this anymore? You have to watch it. It's like 90 seconds. And it just confirms that Brad Pitt is the goat. He is hilarious. And that he puts serious thought into everything he does, including the please stay quiet in the

theater PSAs that went out before the movie came out in theaters 25 years ago. So watch it. I'm glad it's going viral again. And we should definitely make actors do those PSAs for theaters. So, Catherine, that really came out in 2019, 1999, yeah, 1999, which is kind of universally, I remember just like a year of, like, absolutely amazing movies. Yes. Maybe that, maybe the best single year for movies in the last, like, 40 years or longer. So, question, could that movie, so number one is that movie was, at least according to

the accounts that I've read, that movie was very difficult to make. And then once they had in the can, like, people, the original people who saw it, like, where, you know, it's just like, a lot of people just, like, didn't know what to make of it, you know, because there is a simplistic reading of it, right? Which is just like total nihilism and, like, just destruction and, you know, sex of violence, you know, to no purpose. It's one of those movies where, like, you have to have a lens on the movie.

You have to have an idea of the movie or the movie has to get its idea across to you and you have to, you have to catch the idea before you can actually watch it properly because if you just watch it otherwise, it just seems like it's just, like, tremendously nihilistic, which, you know, very much, I very much don't believe that it is. But, you know, I think it was very controversial at the time. It was very hard to get made. You know, it was misinterpreted by many people over the years.

And by the way, the people who made it, but he is misinterpreting it. And so that movie could get made during that era. Could that movie have gotten made after the 90s? I feel like it's the like the consummate 90s film, right? Like just the, as you said, like the critique on consumerism, like the sort of early critique on, you know, kind of the consumer.

effecting masculine, like, traits, right? Like, like, the whole, the whole reaction of, you know, we're going to have a fight club to kind of reclaim our mass validity and sort of our life and our, you know, that felt like was actually, I mean, it's interesting because it's the same critique, it's the same conversation that's happening right now, but it really was also a 90s conversation.

Just sort of, you know, and that's the same thing as, I believe 1999 was also American Beauty. And that's a similar sort of, like all of these movies had the same sort of, to your point, nihilism, but sort of this David Foster, Pastor Wallace-esque sort of consumerism is destroying us. We're moving to the suburbs and we have to reclaim in some way. And like the sort of, I don't, like the portrayal of any man feeling like constrained in their,

it was always sort of like the consumerism and the suburbanization of America is destroying sort of like masculine freedom. Right. So there were like, oh, that was like a very 90s or coded end of the 90s film era. Like I don't, so part of me is like, I don't, it. probably be made, but it would probably be made with totally different ethos and maybe a totally different take on that, um, thesis now. Like the thesis is slightly different than what it was in the 90s, which is that like, you know, like Walmart is destroying you, right? Like, it's a very different. Now it's like tech is destroyed you, but at the time it was Walmart and capitalism are destroying you.

Mark, Catherine, thanks so much for coming on and talk about movies again. Awesome. Thank you so much, Mark. Thanks for listening to this episode of the A60s podcast. If you like this, episode, be sure to like, comment, subscribe, leave us a rating or review, and share it with your friends and family. For more episodes, go to YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.

Follow us on X at A16Z and subscribe to our substack at A16Z.substack.com. Thanks again for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode. As a reminder, the content here is for informational purposes only. It should not be taken as legal business, tax,

or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any A16Z fund. Please note that A16Z and its affiliates may also maintain investments in the companies discussed in this podcast. For more details, including a link to our investments, please see A16Z.com forward slash disclosures.