MTracey podcast - Some Kind Of Heaven

Episode Date: May 19, 2021

Bit of a break from regular programming here — sorry if you were expecting another scintillating essay on Israel/Palestine. But for the first time, watching a movie motivated me to track down the director and interview him about it, in hopes that I could encourage more people to watch. The movie is called Some Kind of Heaven and it’s a documentary that defies any easy description. Ostensibly, it’s about The Villages, a massive retirement community in Florida that’s become well-known as a political flashpoint given the strident support for Trump there. But the movie isn’t overtly political, thank God — which is actually a good way to gain genuine insight into the political/cultural dynamics of The Villages. I really recommend watching the documentary, which is available on Video On Demand and most recently, Hulu. In this occasional edition of my Substack-hosted podcast, I chatted with the director, Lance Oppenheim. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mtracey.net/subscribe

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the latest edition of my occasional podcast here on the old substack. I don't think I've ever done a podcast ever based on my reaction from watching a movie. But that occurred here. I watched a documentary, a newly released documentary called Some Kind of Heaven about the villages which is this massive retirement community in Florida. And it was not anything like a political caricature you might associate with a documentary on that subject. And so I felt I ought to do whatever is reasonably my power to encourage others to watch the documentary, which is available now on.

now on different platforms, Hulu, Amazon, etc. And decided to have myself a merry little interview with the director, Lance Oppenheim. So it was a pretty interesting conversation, I think. And yeah, I hope you enjoy it. We'll just jump right into it. Have you been scandalized by the lack of opportunity to promote the documentary? It's, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's been more, I think there have been more opportunities than, than, than, then, then I was sort of expecting to promote it because I just, it's incredibly difficult,

um, to release an independent film, especially an independent, like, semi-art housey, doc. it's hard to release those anytime, but it's especially difficult to release them during a pandemic. So it wasn't easy, but I do think, and this is really magnolia pictures who released the film. They had a mask. I think they really understood what the movie was, and I'm very grateful to them.

They understood the movie from the beginning. They were the first people at Sundance when the film was shown to raise their hand and say, you know, minutes after the film finished that they wanted to, you know, distribute it. So it was, they were true to their promise. They figured out how to, how to promote it. And I think the movie commercially performed much better than I think we all had anticipated. But I wouldn't be lying if I told you, you know, I mean, I definitely feel like the fact that it performed well on VOD made me.

think, well, you know, must have, we would have performed even better if it was in theaters. It could have found even more of an audience. But, you know, my expectations for all of this, like this, this was my college thesis, this film. And it started off in a very, you know, humble place. I thought this was just going to be a short film. And I kept working on it and working on it and working on it. And as I kept going, I realized it was something bigger. And then as I kept, as I realized it was something bigger, I knew that I needed to kind of amass a larger team. Somehow it'll, to allow me to work on a, you know, scale that I hadn't worked on previously up to that point. So anything, all this stuff is, has exceeded my expectations. And I always try

to keep myself in check when I feel disappointed about something. Yeah, I think that's why. So I first heard about the movie because somebody mentioned to me that they had watched it and they watched it with the expectation that it was going to be some kind of almost political history of the villages because of the attention that the villages had received into the national political media over the past few years for being a hotbed of Trump supporters or whatever. And clearly the movie was not that. were almost surprised. And I think the person who mentioned it still appreciated the movie, but it was just totally contrary to what they thought they were going to be watching. And I watched it and I really loved it. I mean, this is the first time that I never saw out somebody to do a podcast or even an interview on a

on documentary around any film really just because I felt like it deserves wider notoriety um I thank you I appreciate that and no I I would imagine that you know the folks in your in your circle uh would be would have a similar reaction to the to your buddy um because I do think you know I it's I grew up knowing about the villages from Florida. And I think if you are aware of the villages and you're not from Florida, you're probably, you know,

the idea of it, it's such a conservative, it's a conservative mecca of the United States to some degree within that demographic of person of anyone over the age of 60. So it's, I imagine if someone were to in retail, I think that, oh, there's a documentary about this place.

your brain would first go to the, you know, the movie is going to be a political film or at least examine this political phenomenon. And to me, I guess I was less, I was less interested in looking at the binary of, you know, Trump supporter or not, you know, Republican or Democrat or is this place good or is it bad or anything like that. I was more interested in this existential condition. the first being what moves what motivates people to move to this world that reminds them of their youth and why is that happening in mass and you know kind of this massive exodus 130,000 people

that are moving into this Truman show like suburban, suburban world and leaving their family behind and everything else. And the second being that, you know, what happens when that dream becomes a nightmare, which is something I feel like is relatable for anybody. And I also felt that politically speaking, and all the... I feel like the kind of

the conservative ethos of the place is baked into the way it was designed and themed. And the lack of diversity there is also inherent in the film itself. There's, I think, one person who isn't white that's in the movie, and he's very briefly meant in there.

Um, there's, you know, the film, I wanted to make the film to, in some ways, be kind of a reflection. I wanted the film to feel all the reality distortion effects of what it, what it's like when you're there in the villages. And I also wanted it to feel kind of like a bubble inside of a bubble. I wanted it to, um, I wanted it to, to, you know, to be informed by all the things that I felt, uh, when I was making it. So, you know, to me, I felt like just because you don't necessarily, you know, the film doesn't necessarily bring up Trump explicitly, I feel like I wouldn't consider this an apolitical film. I still see, you know, the choice to isolate oneself, cocoon oneself inside of this hyper-American,

you know, patriotic image that, like, in my mind, calls the images of like Ronald Reagan's Morning in America commercial I feel like there's something there's something about that that is that is or even like the idyllic make America great again

kind of right you know if you want to kind of reduce it to that but I was going to say I think I agree it's not a wholly apolitical film but in a way the political dimensions are better elucidated by the lack of

an explicit political focus. Yeah, yeah. This kind of boring, tedious binary that every other that you can get anywhere across the media, it's, you know, I guess to use sort of a cliche, it humanizes it in a way that gives you more insight into the political dynamics at work in this very strange, like you said,

hyper-Americanized construct. That seems to me only could exist in America. Like, I don't know, like, is there, possibly an equivalent of this type of living arrangement anywhere else in the world? Maybe. I mean, I don't have a full expanse of knowledge of whether that could be the case, but I tend to doubt it. Yeah, I don't think they're probably, you know, to the credit of the developers of the villages, they did create something that is entirely unique that I don't, I don't really know.

I think there are other attempts to replicate it. And, you know, it's funny because the villages itself is sort of a chopped and screwed version of other retirement communities that came before it, like Sun City in Arizona. And Sun City evolved from Youngtown and I believe it was also in Arizona. But Sun City was really the design. That was what informed the creation of the villages. That was the first place, the first retirement community that had these kind of self-content. contained utopian elements to it where you had, you know, a whole world that was accessible via golf card and stuff like that. But, um, but no, I mean, you know, just by,

I think also by scale comparison, there's nothing larger than the villages. It's, it's, it's larger in square mileage and the size of Manhattan. You know, it's, it's, it's now, I think it's now almost in four counties spread across, spread across four counties. Um, so yeah, I mean, it's, there, there isn't anything quite. like it. And I do agree with you that I think, you know, to me, I wanted to also make a film that was somewhat timeless in a way that you could watch and, you know, 15 years from now and it's still rang true. And it didn't feel dated. And in my mind, I just was like, I wanted to take all the things that I felt about, you know, the Trump era and the ways we were thinking about it and the

ways we were reading about it. And I wanted to look deeper than that. I wanted to look past it. And I think anytime I read someone who is, you know, a review or something that, you know, someone who watches this film and is disappointed that there isn't mention of any Trumpian stuff in it, I just, that's fine.

And I'm not going to disagree with how they feel. But I just find, I thought that the far easier film to make was the one that was about, you know, that would have mocked the folks who live there that had an ideological basis that was far different than mine. It would have been far easier to make a movie about that made a bunch of Trump supporters who also, surprise, surprise were like over the age of 60 that made them look really foolish. Like that wasn't, that wasn't interesting to me. That wasn't as much of a challenge to me as it was to humanize this place that feels so plastic-e and, you know,

a place that I wasn't really sure if anything authentic really could happen in. And, you know, the whole journey of the film, but hopefully by the time it ends, is that you do feel a deep connection to the folks who live in, who live there, but also you have maybe more of a well-rounded understanding as to why it works. Why, why, why some people like, you know, someone like Barbara who finally decides to kind of get out of her comfort zone and join the flock of society there, There's a bittersweet sort of idea baked in there was that, you know, maybe she'll kind of subsume a part of herself to join this larger crowd. But maybe that is the ultimate way to find happiness in a world like that.

Yeah. I mean, there's this really great fusion of bleakness and plasticity, but also this endearing quality of people who are just, you know, this is their life circumstances. This is where they found themselves and they're making the best of it, trying to be. trying to enjoy themselves, navigating, et cetera. So it's not like you have to render some kind of firm, definitive moral judgment on anything. You're just sort of observing this little nook of Americana that you otherwise wouldn't have access to.

I mean, I actually laughed out loud at. And there's like some almost dark comedy. Like I laughed out loud at when there's this guy giving this tour on a boat. Yeah. And he demonstrates this, what he says is a name. Native American dance. And then you cut to just him saying, oh, and there's the local prison. Like, it's not going to make sense.

It's not going to just make sense for me recounting it here. You have to kind of watch. Yeah, there's that kid who is the only like, you know, the only kid, the only people on this ship on this little boat that are expressing any kind of like contempt or skepticism or these little kids. And they're just bored, you know. They're just bored. Yeah.

How did you, I mean, what really struck me just throughout is how, I mean, some of the shots, and I guess this isn't necessarily totally unique to your documentary. I've seen other documentaries where I would maybe make a similar observation, but some of the shots seem like fully theatrical to me. Like, like there's this one shot of the wife whose name escapes me of the guy. and the wife of this guy who has a very strange journey let's say trying to limit the amount of spoilers if you could call them spoilers but at one point she's sort of she goes out on her own to dance and her her fate I mean the expression on her face it

seemed like a director would have had to whisper that to her as like an actor yeah you know you know what I mean? And that's what, but it's obviously fully authentic. And I'm assuming that required just hours and hours of painstaking work. But yeah, that's just that really was, when I've mentioned the movie to people,

including people who are in like, you know, the film industry in one way or another, that's really what I, I, I've noted. And they've seemed to agree. Well, thank you.

I mean, yeah, yeah, I think, I mean, it goes back to just the origins of wanting to make a movie about this place. I only wanted to make a film about this world if I could somehow find a way stylistically to mimic it, you know, and the channel how manicured and, you know, how composed everything looked. And I knew that if I wanted it, I knew that just making kind of a fly-on-the-wall documentary that was shot handheld, that was roving, that wasn't as intentional about the composition of the frames, that it would do a disservice to transporting a viewer

into that setting. So we tried doing everything that we possibly could to get people into the dreamscape of that place. And, you know, I think there were, few things. One, anytime I like, you know, when we were first trying to make the film and we were trying to figure out stylistically how this would all work out, I think anytime you bring a camera into any sort of environment, you sort of, you corrupt reality, right? And I think here,

being much younger than all of my subjects, you know, most people are like who, like, I wouldn't even have to bring a camera around. I was just like automatically, very naturally sticking out to people. So anytime I introduced a camera, it made people freeze up even more. So I wanted to lean into I wanted to lean into the kind of the performance that people were giving me, you know, especially when I first met them and see if I could kind of enhance or embrace that performance until I get to something, you know, until I got to something truer. And what that meant for the main subjects, I think I was living in the villages for about almost like two and a half months well before we rolled on a single frame of the movie. So I was there without a camera and I was

just meeting people and I got to know all the subjects extremely well for that period of time. You know, we kind of established this bedrock of trust. And I think there was also this mutual curiosity that we had for each other. I think for them, I was almost, you know, I was the very age that they were kind of trying to return back to, which is sort of one of the reasons why they moved to the villages in the first place, the Peter Pan syndrome of it all. And someone does liken going to the villages as like going to college as a retirement. Right. And says that. Yeah. Totally. So I think, which I think is true. So I think for, for, you know, across, across a lot of

the interactions with people, especially the main subjects, there was that like it didn't feel like I was talking to someone that was, you know, three generations older than me. It felt like we were peers or, you know, ultimately collaborators and doing this. And the way we shot the film was, was very rigorous. It would be, you know, we would set up a shot, you would compose it. And then I would try and basically bring the reality back into something that our subjects would normally do. So like the scene that you were talking about with Anne dancing, it was like, like, you know, twice as much, three times as much footage of her, of her doing that in different places. And we would set up, we'd set up the camera and then I'd have her dance, you know, more or less in position of where the camera was or where we were setting up our shot.

But then I would kind of leave. I would leave and just let, let try and see what would happen, what kind of reality, what kind of chaos. would would would would unfold inside this composition we would you know we created and it was a lot of stuff like that like Dennis at the pool for example which is like a routine something he normally does quite a lot but you know how I was thinking of myself how can we enhance this how can we like stylistically bring someone channel the desire he feels and the this desperation um that he also felt and that was another thing as well of just shooting that sequence in a pretty heightened way where we involved this servo zoom a zoom lens we were shooting from the back of the pool and then

the person he was you know hitting on was coming I knew she was coming soon as well so I had to get in position for when she arrived and I you know filmed it that way as well so there was a lot of moments in time where it felt like you know because in some ways because of the the way we were shooting exclusively on a tripod and it's a single camera, you know, one camera, the entire movie. I had to also be a lot more honest to the subjects about what I was filming and how I was going to film it and how it was going to be played and used in the film and why I was interested in filming it. These are things that I never really, up until this point, I'd never had to bring myself to admit to while filming because most films I had made was, you know,

more or less that fly on the wall type stuff where I would shoot. something and, you know, cheat and play with it in the edit, you know, and I would be able to divorce it from the reality or I'd be able to divorce it from the context and make it work for the film. Whereas here, there was a lot more of, you know, it's just upfront honesty so that when they saw the film and also when I was filming these moments, they felt a lot less self-conscious about how I was going to be presenting it. They knew exactly how it was going to be presented in the film. And that also helped. I think them performance-wise shed any of that insecurity that they otherwise would normally feel.

So in a way, it was very interesting. It was almost like, you know, they were performing scenes from their everyday lives, but doing so very confidently. And, you know, I just, it's a feat for just a performance on their part. I mean, they just are like these people are not actors at all in their own lives. but they they were so brave and vulnerable and gave so much to this film

but obviously would not exist. The film would not exist without them. So I think weirdly I think our process of shooting it ended up creating this alchemy of sorts that we that we you know,

that our subjects really latched on to. And how was this collaboration, as you put it, presented to them? Like what was the premise? Was it that you wanted to jointly show the outside world what life was like in the villages in sort of a neutral way? What was the initial cell on what it is that you were trying to do that made them so comfortable in partaking in this collaboration?

Well, I think more generally, I mean, it started off as just, you know, I'm here. I am in college. This is my thesis. I'm from Florida and I'm interested in making a film about the villages. I have no idea how I'm going to do that or why I'm going to do that. But I think you're an interesting person. Would you be open to having me around? And then as, you know, for Anne and Reggie, as I got to know them,

then the conversation turned to sort of like, you guys are very different from one another. I'm so interested in seeing how you make your relationship work, especially after, you know, 45 plus years of being married. I think it would be very, you know, inspirational to a lot of people. people whose relationships aren't working. And I, you know, personally had just, I was dating someone for a long time and we had just broken up.

So these were questions that I think were on my own mind that I was very honest and up front of them about as well. And I think there is that kind of recurring thing, you know, the movie's about a lot of things, but I do think underneath a lot of it as well is it's also a movie about relationships. You know, it's a movie about how to maintain existing ones, how to start new ones. and how to recover from ones that just have ended, right? And I think that was something that I think across the four subjects in the film,

that was something that I was, you know, that was also interested in constantly talking to them about. So, you know, that was that with them. It was never sort of, I think only really in the edit did it, did all coalesce that this was going to be a film that examined this world by looking at the margins of the community, by the margins of the people who haven't been able to find their footing inside all of the, you know, manufactured happiness

and, and, you know, the ear-to-ear grins of everyone who live there. And was there any kind of scandal in the reaction to it? Like, how has it been received by the village's community, if you can call it? Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, from the subjects themselves, there was no scandal, I think, and this is in large part just due to the fact that,

you know, they were, this wasn't a movie where we were just capturing things and moving on. This was, you know, we were very methodical about how we were shooting things. So when they saw the film, they saw a few different cuts of it. They saw a rough cut, and they saw a fine cut,

and they saw the final cut. You know, they watched as the film progressed and evolved and gave notes and gave thoughts. And it was, it was, they were, again, it was more like they were collaborators than it was like they were subjects who we would just be with once and then capture a bunch of stuff and then, you know, never talked to them again until they saw the movie. So for them, it was, it was a, they're very proud of the film, which is nice. I mean, and Reggie, they bought a new TV in their house so they could watch the film like, you know,

an infinite amount of times post the film being released on Hulu and coming out on VOD and everything. Barbara, you know, is also, I think, very proud of just herself as a performer. She wants to act, and I think she sees the film as sort of an exhibit, especially her monologue at the end, as sort of a reflection of what she can do. and Dennis, I think, you know, Dennis has gone his entire life pretty much wanting to

memorialize his story, you know, and in his mind, be famous. That's what he's, that's what he told me the first time I asked him, you know, why he wanted be in the film. So I think each of them, it did satisfy some kind of dream that they may have had, you know, in some way, shape, or form. And now Dennis is, you know, he, you know, He's involved the movie and his own new schemes. He left the villages and he's right outside of the villages now.

And he's printing out, you know, he's made bootlegged merch, merchandise. He made a T-shirt with the film's poster on it. He's signing autographs. He has a bag, a canvas bag that he made. It's a Sundancer on the side. I don't know why he chose Sundanceer instead of Sundance, but it is what it is, whatever. chose to do. Him and Reggie have become quite good friends. So there hasn't been any negative

reactions among anyone who appeared in the film. The only negative reactions that I've, you know, experienced or felt comes from, you know, people who live in the villages directly who are probably on the more conservative side of the world there, which is to say a lot of people. I think, I'm not actually sure how many folks actually have seen the movie. I know that a lot of, you know, most people are familiar that a movie exists about the place. And most people could probably tell you that the New York Times was involved as a producer. And I think that, along with the trailer, led to a lot of distrust among many of the people who happen to live there. And I think they think of the film as a hit piece on their lifestyle that they very much love, which in my mind, the film could not be

further from that. I think it's a film that's much more, it's a much more intimate portrait of these specific individuals, you know, people who are going through very real problems against the backdrop of this very unreal place. But yeah, I think, I think a lot of people in the villages see this as something that it isn't because they haven't seen the film yet or they, even if they have, they maybe just took the wrong things from it. And then the village is proper. The administration also wrote every person in the village is a letter saying to not support the film because it does a disservice in representing their lifestyle or something. So, you know, I mean, just like kind of stuff that was part for the course.

I was never expecting the administration to get behind the movie in any way, given that they, you know, are notoriously hostile to outsiders. And they also are, they spend a lot of money on their own marketing campaigns. and they have their own TV channel where they really produce only the good news and anything remotely that is negative about their setting, that their lifestyle is detrimental in their mind

to what they're doing. So they were not super stoked, I would say, when the movie came out. And, you know, but, so I don't know. I mean, it's interesting. If you go on Google and you look at the 71% of people or whatever it is, recommend this movie.

If you look at the Google reviews or if you go in Rotten Tomatoes and you look at the audience reviews, it seems like there was a coordinated effort to review bomb the movie from all these people who live in the villages because there's a lot of one-star reviews from people who are like, you know,

does not represent the lifestyle I'm familiar with exclamation point. The village is rocks. You know, it's like stuff like that. But, you know, again, And just I wish that people who are there, who are fanatics of the lifestyle and who also are very big fans of, you know, President Trump, former President Trump, whatever, I wish they were less psychopathic and just watch the movie before criticizing it.

So, you know, directly, I guess. Yeah. Well, I mean, the administration of the village. is coming out and condemning it formally like that is actually. Yeah, it was great. It was, you know, great for you, I was going to say. Yeah, I was to say, I mean, it's like, it's like, it's free marketing for, for, for, for us. And I think, you know, I, I, I would say there are like the other, the only other critical, you know, negative responses I've gotten, you know, or sometimes, are, are from people who, who are expecting a much more broad and basic portrait of, of the villages.

and this doesn't satisfy, you know, they're looking to be informed or educated or people whose opinions, you know, who enjoy documentaries that are educational in some ways. When they watch this film, they feel let down because they weren't given the, you know, the entire, every logistical question they have about the places goes unanswered.

You do, you do, you do, you do talk to the son of the founder, right? So you must have had some cooperation with the administration. I did. I mean, he was an interesting individual. He really, he was kind of excommunicated in a way from the administration. He still lives in the villages. He used to be very involved.

He was there when the community first was grown and started. And he also was. someone who, you know, he ran the golf division for like 20 plus years. So he was really in there. His nephew is now in charge of everything. And he has kind of retired in his own way from doing all that stuff. He just really enjoys life more so as a village, village is resident now. So he was in the film. Yeah. And he, you know, I think he was he was a very intelligent individual and I think he was a fan of movies and he had watched my other work and I you know we had a relationship that we were we were friends with one another and I just I told him that my my

aim here is not to make a hit piece of anyone or anything it was I wanted to get to the bottom from his from his story I wanted to get to I wanted to understand how this place came to be and I wanted to understand what the, you know, yeah, how, how, from a personal level, what did that mean to him? And that, from a personal level, that stuff didn't really make it into the film as much. We actually did release a second kind of a short film with the New York Times opt-dogs that, that contains a lot of more material that, that we were thinking would make it into the future and we just couldn't find a place for it.

And there's some more stuff of him in there. But anyway, you know, this is a very, this is a movie that's very expressive and it's much more attuned to the emotional, you know, worlds of these people who happen to live there. And I do think it makes sense why when someone is looking for that big, broad, you know,

history of the village's documentary or political mishaps of the village's documentary, This isn't it, but it is something different. And I do think it's important that people watch it because I think they will have renewed more of a point of view on the world there once, you know, after they finish it. And also a point of view of what it means to grow old, which is something that we all do every day of the year

if we are living on this earth. You don't have to be 83 years old to, to feel strange about aging. You know, we all age, and it is an unsettling feeling for everybody. So, you know, there is, that's, that's really what is in this film. Yeah. You know what strikes me as sort of a companion film to this? I don't know if you happen to have seen it, but I watched it within the past week.

It's a documentary Jasper Mall. Jasper Mall, yeah, yeah, I have heard so much about it. I haven't seen it yet, and I have it actually downloaded on my computer. I hear it's great. Yeah, it was, it was fantastic, and it was very similarly almost conceived in that the idea was just to document the phenomenon of the decline of these regional malls. and it actually is that's sort of focus on old people older people who are the main clientele of some of these declining malls particularly this one in

Alabama it just kind of chronicles a handful of regulars and it's kind of understated I wouldn't say it's as it's not as shot as theatrically as yours

by any stretch but yeah it just seemed kind of tied together. So I would definitely recommend watching it. I'm excited to see it. I,

the life and death of the suburban mall. I mean, that's a very interesting subject. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, do you have any conclusion?

Did you draw any conclusions? I mean, the movie doesn't make any explicit judgments as we've gone. over. But did you personally kind of come away with any conclusions, whether politically or sociologically? I mean, I think the conclusions I came to are more are, are, you know, I think just because we grow older doesn't mean we grow wiser, right? And I think if anything, especially in a world like the villages that is more than all the political stuff and the riffraff

around that. Really, people are moving there because they want to end their life in a place that reminded them of where they started their lives, you know, of a place where they were coming of age. And I think there's something really interesting to seeing people who are escaping the problems, the things that bug them about their lives currently, you know, to experience the end in a place where everything has been, you know, kind of antiseptically treated, right, at a place that all negative news, all things are absent. I think there's something kind of, and I guess seeing their problems catch up with them,

seeing that the human struggle never really ends and will find you wherever you go, there's something very there's obviously something quite depressing about that which I think is definitely in this film but I also think there's something somewhat hopeful about that as well and not just the fact of life that you know struggle will find you no matter where you go

but really just how you respond to it I think these people in this film are four people who are you know are they're still in the process of becoming they're not older people people per se. I mean, by by fact they are, but um, but they're just people. They're people and they are going through the things, uh, they are going through the last chapters of life that are, that are, that are not the most kind to them. And yet they still are continuing to search and

strive and find and make themselves or new, you know, better. Um, and, and to me, I find that to be very inspiring as someone who's, you know, a lot younger than them. And, you know, for me, that was one of, it may seem maybe more of an obvious takeaway of making the film, but I, but I do find that to be, when I think about the movie and I think about what the movie means and why I'm proud of its existence, I think it's one of the rare films that looks at aging without having to explicitly cast, you know, these, sort of stereotypical ways of aging when looking at these characters.

These are characters who are flawed individuals who are still very much unformed and thought they would be more formed by the time they got to their, you know, 82 years old and they're still not. And that's okay. And then I think, you know, my thoughts in the villages as a whole.

I mean, I think it's a, I think like it's a very, it could be a very scary place. I think it can be, a place that is, is, you know, the nomenclature, the whole, the fact that it is completely self-contained and isolated from our reality. And they are, you know, I'm sure you've seen the other day that Matt Gates came. And there was a whole, like, rally of supporters who were still, quite a lot of them who were dancing and singing for him.

With Marjorie Taylor Green, right? Yeah, yeah. It's like totally. totally, totally insane. But I do think that's symptomatic of something that's happened in our country in the, and I think the metamorphosis of the villages from this place that once was less politically concerned, you know, the origins of the villages was, was merely just a guy who was actually, I think, a liberal, Harold Schwartz.

He was a Jewish guy. He wanted to create, you know, he wanted to take all the lessons and learnings of Disney and apply it to theming. retirement community. And I think, you know, as the demo changed and as baby boomers started to retire, the world of that place, you know, also the children of Harold Schwartz, their politics also changed. And I do think the villages is this, is sort of this. The reason it's a conservative mecca is because a lot of these folks who normally feel like they don't have anywhere else to go.

They don't really feel like they, they don't see themselves in our country anymore. They don't see themselves really maybe in the lives of their children anymore because the children have moved on or have their own lives. I think it's like, you know, it's, it's, it's the snake eating its own tail. What's that called the Oreo, the son Oreo. I love Oreo cookies. What's that thing called again? You know, I'm talking about the, oroboris, or the.

something along those lines. Anyway, it's... I feel a shame for not picking me on whatever reference you're trying to conjure up. Yeah, it's, it's, I'm pretty sure it's, it's, I'm pretty sure it's an oroborous, the idea of this, it's like that symbol of a snake swallowing its own tail. But that's how I view the world there in a way. It's, it's this, it's a, you know, it's, it's, it's people who, who, who, it's, it's, it's people who, who, who, It exists and the reason it's so popular is because these people are in some ways, they don't feel home anywhere else anymore. And they're trying to redefine home again,

and they're trying to do that in a place that reminds them of a simpler time when they understood the world a lot better when they were younger. So, you know, I guess when I look at those videos of people that are going nuts for Marjorie to their green or Matt Gates or Trump or Pence, I mean, I just, I, I, I, I don't know, I, I try and, like, I try to isolate when I think about each individual who is there and I've spoken to so many conservatives who do live there. It's like I, I can't help but feel a little, I feel sad. I feel, I feel, I feel, I feel, in some ways, a little sad for them that this is, this is their religion. This is their dogma.

This is the thing that they have found most renewal in. outside of, you know, in some cases, maybe more than their families. And the reason for that is not because of the sudden emergence of these politicians who speak to these fundamentally, you know, these things that they all feel. But I do think it speaks to a larger problem, which led to the origins of the villages in the first place, which is just we don't have, you know, we don't really have a place to put in our country folks who are of that age. We put them in, you know, when it's your turn,

you put your, and you don't know what to do with your parent, you try to put them in an assisted living center. And, you know, we've eliminated that, the nuclear family, somebody's eliminated the place for older parents and older grandparents. So anyway, I think it's, it makes total sense. It's no surprise to me that a place that is filled of 130,000, baby boomers who are, you know, 98.3% white or whatever the statistic is, it's no surprise to me

that they are overwhelmingly conservative in that, in that, you know, modern day Republican thoughts have dominated their minds and have become more of a religion than, you know, religion itself. Yeah. And whatever atomization gives rise to their adoption of these political believes a substitute for traditional religion or communal attachments or what have you. I mean, that's not even an exclusively conservative

phenomenon. They just happen to be in a demographic group where they're going to gravitate in that particular political direction. So, I mean, there's almost a universalizable truth there that isn't

whole unique to the Republican Party or anything. Yeah. I think you're right. And also, I mean, the villages, but that being said, the villages really is sort of the epicenter

for the political orientation of Florida. I mean, it seems to me the reason why Florida is, has trended Republican more so than other states is that you have this influx. of retirees two places exactly like the village is not only but you know that that that's that that's so that's why i think you have people expecting a more robust uh kind of political chronicling of the of the movie because there really is something there that is worth exploration um if you're a politically conscious citizen but right um anyway uh so so the the movie is now on Hulu. Any other distribution logistical notes to tell the listener?

Yeah, it's on Hulu now. And it also is available in the UK. It just was released on Friday in the UK. Go to just type in some kind of having Dog Woof. Dog Wolf is the person who distributed there. And you should find it. But otherwise, yeah, if you're in America, go on Hulu.

If you're in Canada, type in some kind of heaven mk2 because that's they release it on vod and we have some other uh it's i believe being released in australia and a few other places uh soon i don't know the logistics of some of those things but um i know it's happening at some point yeah and i i watched it on amazon so it's there too yeah it's on vod too if you'd like to uh if you'd like to give us a few bucks. You can rent it on Amazon or iTunes or wherever. Indeed.

Well, all right, Lance, thanks for taking out some time to chat. Again, I hope people do watch the movie and ponder it. And looking forward to see what you come up with next. Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Man, it was a pleasure. All right, take care. Take care.

See you. Bye.