Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - Gladiatwo

Episode Date: December 3, 2024

The guys talk writers' rooms, the pressure of writing jokes on the spot, and the good and bad of Gladiator 2, from Denzel to Ridley Scott's accent agnosticism to whether or not Paul Mescal has The Juice.

Tis the season for shopping, and with Rakuten, it's also the season for stacking up the savings. Use Rakuten to stack cash back at hundreds of stores on top of holiday sales. That's like savings on savings. With Rakuten, you can save money on gifts for everyone on your list, from toys for the little one, to kitchen gear for the hostess with the mostess, to electronics for yourself. Shop with Rakuten and spend more time locating the perfect gift,

less time trying promo codes that don't work. Did I mention that Rakuten is super easy to use? Just start your shopping at rakuten.ca or in the Rakuten app. Do your shopping like you normally would and you'll get the cash back by PayPal or check. It truly is a no brainer. Join for free at Rakuten.ca or download the Rakuten app.

That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N, Rakuten.ca. My dream of writing is to win and not write anymore. That's what every writer wants. Yeah, to never write again. To have everyone believe you are the best writer and to never write another word to disprove them. That does actually sound pretty nice. Surely that'll beat back the imposter syndrome. I've got a quick quick question for you, alright? The answer's not important, I'm just glad that we can talk tonight

So what's your favourite? Who did you get? Who would I be if you remembered? Words without a word at all? Who's the guy who we know? Oh forget it! Saw a movie, Daniel O'Brien Two best friends and comedy writers If there's an answer they're gonna find it movie Daniel O'Brien Two best friends and comedy writers

If there's an answer they're gonna find it I think you'll have a great time here I think you'll have a great time here So hello again and welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, the podcast where two best friends and comedy writers ask each other questions and give each other answers. I am one half of that podcast, senior writer for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, author of How to Fight Presidents and Scoop Troop. Once and future internet writer Daniel O'Brien joined us always by my co-host

Soren Bowie. Soren say hello. Hello everybody I'm Soren Bowie I'm a writer for American Dad and and um I am bad at shaving. Okay yeah speak on that do you here's what I do that uh my wife will always point out to me is that I shave, I'll do like razor on my neck and buzzer on my face. And I will often miss little bits on my neck. But what I definitely always 100% of the time mix is I get hairs that grow on like my cheeks,

my upper cheek, face cheeks. Wolfman hairs, yeah. Upper face cheeks, yeah. And I never ever address those because I'm, because I learned how to shave from watching Tom and Jerry cartoons. And so I'm just shaving where beards are supposed to be as per the cartoons.

I'm not doing anything based on the realities of my face. I'm just like, this is what shaving looks like, right? I do the same thing, but I also, I think that, you know, it's 10,000 hours, man. If you, the long time you spend on something, you could become good at it. And I just don't have, because of the way that my facial hair grows, I shave maybe like once a week.

And that means that I'm so far behind everybody else, I assume. I mean, I guess it's also a very private thing that you don't watch other people shave. But I'm just so bad at it. Like as I'm doing it, I'm thinking, ah, someday I'm gonna learn how to do this. Like do I go down on my neck or do I go up on my neck?

I don't really know. And so like I'm like trying to- There's no wrong way. I'm trying to- I mean there are a couple of wrong ways. And then I'd like I'll get done. I'll be like, ah, I think I nailed it. No, look in the mirror. I've got little mohawks all over like just like strips of of approach that like just I never even got to somehow. I don't know how much shaving cream to use. I'm terrible at it. No, I've always overshot shaving cream for sure. And it's tough because I will notice when I've missed spots,

but like I've already gone past the time I decided this task takes. My allotted shaving time is done and I'm just like, oh well, I'll just have to move on to my other tasks. Yeah, dead rod was moving. It has to be how it is. I want to shave immediately after the shower when there's still like, my pores are open and there's steam and there's heat,

but I can't really see my reflection in the mirror. So I like, I try to rub some room on the mirror so I could see my face. And I know I'm not getting the full picture of my face. And that's when a reasonable person would stop and say like there's, by design, you're setting yourself up for failure because you're not giving yourself the clearest angle on the face, which is one of the most important parts

of shaving. But that doesn't deter me because I just don't wanna do it. I also shaved immediately out of the shower and I do it because I know that my face is clean. And from what I understand, I don't even know if this is true. From what I understand, you're supposed to wash your face before you shave it. Yeah, probably. Yeah, but like why?

There's not like crust inside the, there's no noodles or anything in there that like gunk up my razor. So like, why do I have to shave my, how do I have to wash it? I just know that it's something I think I'm supposed to do. So I do it. And then I've also heard things like, yeah, hot water, cold water, make a difference on the beginning and the end.

Like you put hot water on first and then cold at the end and it closes your pores. But I don't know what any of that shit means. I don't think any of that's true. I'm just, all my friends, everyone in my life has drifted ahead. They've all shaved for longer and I'm just still like a 14 year old. Like I just don't get it.

I'm not good at it. I cut myself sometimes. You don't need to be good at it. I don't think it's gonna matter. And I don't mean this dismissively. I don't think it's gonna matter for you. I don't think you're ever gonna need to get really good at shaving.

Thanks, man. You're welcome. So tell me about your shit. You're writing for the internet? Yeah, I'm on hiatus from work right now and want to stretch the writing muscles. So I've started pitching, and this is a scoop for our

listeners that if you listen to our show you're probably already a fan of 1900 hot dog the only comedy website on the internet run by Sean baby and Robert Brockway both of cracked.com fame they run articles from a lot of the cracked expats. Lydia Bug is there. Alex Schmidt is there. Michael Swaim is there. Oh, Jason Pargin does a podcast with them

and occasionally writes. And I love their website and just started pitching some stuff and I'll be having some good old fashioned written words on the internet for people to see if they are subscribers to the 1900 hot dog Patreon. Are you worried at all that you lost it and you're not ever going to have it again and

you're bad at this now? Yes, I want a thousand percent worried that I lost it. And I think that's deeply reflected in the pitch that I set when Brockway is like, yes, and a pitch is like, whatever links a couple of sentences explaining it and we'll go from there. And I wrote like a 700 word version of a 2000 word article that is not a pitch at all. That's just like a lot of the article already.

Do you like this? Okay, it's gonna be this, but longer and dumber. So please accept it because I haven't had to pitch an article, sell someone on the idea of an article in a hundred thousand years. And it's an art that I have like truly lost. We can joke about losing the ability to write, but which is a joke that you and I have,

because we're never gonna lose our like actual abilities to write. Cause then we'd be homeless and we can't do that. Yeah, we'd be house painters, I think. But the literal skill of writing a pitch, that has atrophied for me. Man, yeah, I believe that. I believe that that's the case.

You hadn't even it cracked for a long time. You did not have to pitch what you were going to write. Although there were occasionally times where somebody else would pitch a script that wasn't even necessarily on staff. And we'd talk about it in a meeting and one of us would go, Oh, no, I see how this could work. I see. And then like trying to like pitch it to the room is like, this is why it's funny. Is I remember doing that, but a written pitch.

Yeah. Get it. Man, I don't know how to do that anymore. Different time. You got to you got to explain in a couple couple sentences why a thing is good. And one of the sentences can't be, it's gonna be good because I'm gonna write it. Man, I don't envy you. I would be nervous to go back and write for the internet. I don't know the sensibility of that anymore. My finger's off the pulse, you know? So I don't know the sensibility that anymore my fingers off the pulse, you know, so I don't really know I

Mean, I am I still write my articles where I say slut over and over again Important hallmark of your work I'm not looking forward. I'm happy that it's on like the patreon model because I'm not looking forward to What exposing myself to a comment section? would because I'm not looking forward to what exposing myself to a comment section would do to my sense of self-worth. Yeah. Again, because that's something that, yeah, that we don't really get, you know, there are, we post last week tonight to YouTube and there are certainly comments there.

I'm not like hawkishly staring at them the way that I was when I was at Cracked and letting my self-esteem rise and fall talkishly staring at them the way that I was when I was at Cracked and letting my self-esteem rise and fall based on the words of a stranger. Yeah, it's interesting. I did that a lot at Cracked too, even though Jack was always like, don't do it. We did it anyway. And then something just changed when I left that job

doing this show and then also doing American Dead where I don't read shit about either one. Like I don't, I won't read anything. And uh, there are people on staff who go and like, they'll look through the Reddit when their episode releases. Wow. Or like I'll have somebody from the show be like, people on Reddit really asking a lot of questions about your episode.

And I'm like, I, I don't, don't, don't do that. Don't do that to yourself. I've become Jack. I'm like, why are you checking in with these people to see how they think your episode was? You know it was good. We all said it was good and you trust us. Yeah. So when I was just reading in Vulture that the,

and I guess I've known this for a while, the creators of the show Yellow Jackets are incredibly online and reading Reddit threads. And that kind of thing drives me bonkers for them. Because I completely understand the natural curiosity we had and all writers at Cracked or Writing things for YouTube or anywhere else are gonna have to want to see how people engage with it but

like the creators of the show reading people's knee-jerk responses to episodes on reddit is I just want to hold them gently and then shake them less gently and be like just just stay I get it but stay out of there and don't don't worry about that. It's such a it's yeah it's not just because like you're there's so many reasons not to do it it's not just because you might get in there and let and you see stuff that isn't even fair it's cruel and that will hurt but also the good stuff affects your writing. And then also you just start writing to that audience. If they didn't get something, you're like,

well, okay, so they're not getting this. So I'm gonna have to lay this out a little bit straighter as we continue on with the episode, with the season arc. But they don't deserve that. Like the people that are in there and loud are not your audience. Your audience writes white, baby.

Like they're not saying anything in there. Though the, think about this in your own life. If you have, I'm getting mad at you. And you're not always saying that. Hey, don't get mad at me. Get mad at the creators of yellow jackets. Think about this in your own life. Yellow jackets, guys and girls.

Uh, if you, I'm not supposed to say girls. Ally of the year. You guys and sluts. Jesus. Do you know anyone in your life who does that? Who goes on to these different sites as soon as a show comes out and writes about it and like has like a two sentence comment because they're like, I got to get my two cents in there. You don't because those aren't your friends.

Like those aren't the people you should be writing towards. And when you do, you become George R.R. Martin or you become lost. Like you become these shows that you heard an idea from somebody else and you're like, that was kind of the direction I was going and now I can't. Yeah. Don't just don't do it.

And if you don't feel like famous failures, George R.R. Martin and Damon Lindelof. I think that every single day, George R.R. Martin is so stressed out. I think no one has played their hand better in life than George R.R. Martin. He doesn't have to write another fucking word for the rest of his life.

All, he's rich, he lives in a lighthouse in Santa Fe or something like that. He is beloved and for, and he made Game of Thrones. He made everyone's favorite parts of Game of Thrones. And for a long time, the, the narrative was, his books are great, but needs an editor. And that's why the show is so good because it's cutting out a lot of his not quite necessary set dressing that he put into every book. And that was like the prevailing narrative.

And now that they shat the bed for the last season or two of Game of Thrones, and now that the House of Dragons show also isn't that great, Georgia or Martin can die whenever he wants. And everyone is on the same page knowing that he would have ended Game of Thrones better than the show did.

You can't ask for something better than that. Everyone in the world, no matter what, believes like, yeah, the show really didn't stick the landing. This is why they needed George. George would have stuck the landing and then they could have made a good show if they just waited for George to do his books.

And if I'm George R. R. Martin, I'm going like, yeah, totally, 100%. I absolutely would have not just met everyone's expectations but exceeded them. Exceeded them. You're all right. I would have. Excuse me. Exceeded them. You're all right. I would have. Excuse me.

I shall die now. And that'll be his legacy. I guess I have lost track. Is he going to finish his epic books? He says, yeah. Every, he'll get on his blog that he calls Not a Blog and he'll complain about the, your New York football two and nine giants.

He'll complain about them, and complain about how HBO is ruining another one of his Game of Thrones shows, and talk about some upcoming Comic-Con appearance that he's gonna do, and will every once in a while toss in a line or two that is like, by the way, Winds of Winter is still chugging along,

but I want it to be done, but I'm not, but I'm still planning on releasing it. No, no, you're not. Don't, and it's fine. Everyone already, you already won, and you don't have to write another word. Ah. I still feel like there's so much pressure,

because if you do finish it. Sorry, that's my cynical, my dream of writing is to win and not write anymore. That's what every writer wants. Yeah, to never write again. To have everyone believe you are the best writer and to never write another word, to disprove them. That does actually sound pretty nice.

Surely that'll beat back the imposter syndrome. Yeah. We don't have to talk about imposter syndrome too much, but like there are in shows and stuff when writers show up and they're like, there's something that's not working in Dirty Rock or in whatever that studio 60 is now what it's called. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Yeah. When there's something that's not working and they're like, all right,

we gotta fix this in half an hour. I get so deeply nervous. Yeah. Because I'm like, you don't know what it's gonna be. I'm so sorry, I do have to go back. You didn't remember the, you remember 30 Rock, but not the far catchier, more serious Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

That didn't, that didn't make a lasting impression. No, it didn't. And you know what, I watched the whole thing and I can't say that I remember any of it. So many times. I remember all of it. The only thing I remember Matthew Perry tackling someone. And that's all I remember.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, like that's terrifying. And that's the idea that you would like, you have a real crunch, you got to finish it in an hour. And it's got to be funny, funny enough to go on television. I'm like, oh, I don't think I, I don't think I know how to do this. I've never had you do it. But you'd be like, I don't think every single time, every single time. It's like, I don't know how to do this. You should absolutely. Well, well, two things about that. Three things about that. You can't do that. You can absolutely do that. I have only been tested on that a few times more at crack, but a few times at last week tonight where like we will the script goes through multiple drafts and then the one of the close to last stages is three writers are in a room with John and Tim going over the script line by line and tweaking it a sentence at a time and Sometimes you try to in that rewrite room and this is post rehearsal John is hair and makeup dress in a suit

The next thing he's gonna do is tape the show in front of an audience Does he have that little tissue under his collar? Yeah They don't let me see that part that will not So we're in that room and every once in a while if a joke from the script didn't work in rehearsal We try to fix it in that room And if we can't get past it, it is just sort of tabled. Then we go through the rest of the script line by line and they're like, all right, we got through the script and then they, if there is any joke that is left unfixed,

then the three writers in that room go to another room and it's like, all right, we're going to tape it an hour, come up with 10 possible punchlines for this joke. And that's the kind of thing that, uh, like intellectually has seemed impossible, especially because I've never worked that way as just like write it, write 10 jokes in a row. I don't really consider myself a joke writer, but in the high pressure situation in that moment, we always do it. We always somehow magically are more productive than any of us have ever been in our normal writing lives. Yeah, so I think we don't we don't have the your pitch.

You're off in a separate room. You're spun off with a group of people like there's a joke that's not working or a scene below or something, and you're going to fix it. But the idea that it's going gonna go on in an hour, like it's gonna be on television in an hour, would paralyze me. Like you're never in a situation where they're like, Soren, the animators, they're drawing Stan's mouth now.

What they need to know, what shape it's supposed to be. That's a wild experience, by the way, pitching jokes in a room together because you're, you've got to listen to other people's jokes so that you're also like, cause sometimes people pitch something kind of half baked and they're kind of like hoping that everyone in the room shapes it. And so you're like helping with that, but you're also writing your own at the same time. So you're listening to other people as you are writing your own jokes, which is like, there's, it's a sensory overload, but you, yes, you do learn how to do it. But man, the idea that it would be like,

okay, that's it. That's all the time we have. Let's pick one and the show is gonna happen right now. It's like, that's tough, man. The final thing I wanted to say about writing An Imposter Syndrome, a book that if this is how you feel, you should definitely avoid.

But I'm right now reading the Spamelot Diaries. Eric Idle, who was obviously Monty Python, and he wrote book and lyrics for Spamelot the musical. This is like a thing that was never meant to be published. It's his literal diaries of like, hey, we're in workshops in Chicago. We're doing this. It's like while he was working on it,

they had just gotten, what's his nuts? Very famous comedy legend. Mike, Harry Gilliam, Mike, Mike Nichols on board to direct. And like that's when the diary starts and he's just workshopping spam a lot. And there are so many times in this book, his his diaries, where after he's done like, I don't know, 11 drafts of this musical based on a movie he wrote with his friends. So he's like pretty into the words and material after he's written 11 drafts and like the cast is there and they

do a table read and they do like a blocking rehearsal or whatever. It's like, and then I had a meeting afterwards with with John Duprez and Mike Nichols and one of the producers and they didn't like this and this and this. So we scrapped this number. We cut this. We moved this number to act from act one to act two. So now we have no end to act one and I'm'm gonna spend the next three days fixing that, writing a new end of act one for a musical. And he does it.

He just fucking delivers over and over again. He just keeps coming back and he's like, yeah, this thing that I thought was the most important part of act two, they said it doesn't quite work. And they're right, so we cut it. And now we need another most important part of act two. Oh, and tomorrow's Thanksgiving, so I gotta do it today.

And it's just, it's fascinating and terrifying to just like, especially the idea of a musical, which seems so, like not a Jenga tower where pieces can be taken out and it still stands. It seems like you hand in a musical and it's like, this is it, this is done now. You can't even change the key to anything. Yeah.

That's why he makes the big bucks. That's why, well, he's still alive, right? He is still alive. He just published this book. That's why he makes the big bucks Daniel I have a quick question for you. We sure show. Yeah, should we do the show? Yeah, let's do the show All right, have you seen gladiator glad gladiator to glad yeah, I saw gladiator to yes, Daniel, I went to a movie theater. First time in, I want to say, eight years.

I went to a movie theater. That's cool. What time of day did you go? Did you do anything before it? You went at night? I went at night. I went at 730 at night. So it was big, like the city was asleep. Yeah.

And I went and saw this movie with my friend Ollie. He was in town. Shout out to Ollie Kalea, who my friend from England. Yeah, he is. We went and saw this movie together. It was so fun, but there are some things about theaters that I had not kept up with. And so allow me to be your ET for the moment where like I'm just telling you things about the life you've already lived several times and maybe you will hopefully find them charming once again because you see them through different eyes. There's a thing that happens at the beginning of the movie where Pedro Pescal and like Joseph Quinn and Paul Mescal. Pedro

Pescal and Paul Mescal. Yeah. Oh, that's weird. I know it's tough. Their names are spelled and pronounced differently. It's crazy. Their names are spelled and pronounced differently. It's crazy. They both came out, they both, I'll say they're both because in a second we're gonna know why. They come out at the beginning dressed in what I assume are their regular clothes, also kind of silly, and they go, hey, thank you for coming to this movie.

Yeah. Please enjoy Gladiator 2. And I'm like, who the fuck was that for? And I have no idea. Still, like I think back on it, it was very short. Joseph Quinn is just standing there. Joseph Quinn doesn't talk. Joseph Quinn just stands there and smiles. And it's just like a, hey, thanks for coming to the movie. But what is anybody getting out of that? Why did they make them do that? I know. When did they, when in the press junket tour process, what year was that added to everyone's responsibility? Cause it used to be you write a movie or you act in a movie,

you're direct a movie and you make it and you do like late night interviews or a New York Times interview. And now at some point in that process, while when they're doing a million interviews and YouTube shows and podcasts, someone on their team was like, hold up, hold up, hold up, hold up.

Now you need to look directly into the camera and say thank you for going to the movies. And Anthony Hopkins has to be like, fucking what? Thank you for going to the movies, why? Like, because we want people to go to the movie theaters. So this is before the movie starts, you're Anthony Hopkins and you're saying something about how movies are back and you really appreciate people going

to the movies. Anthony Hopkins says to me like, but I, but I don't, I don't care. I don't know any of these people. It's like, we want something personal. Oh, should I say a name? Would that be helpful? If I was like, hey, Jeff, thanks for coming. Why am I thanking them for going to the movies? I made the movie. I made the thing for them. Yeah.

The thank you. The thank you is you came to watch it. The thank you is the millions of dollars I will get on points because you went and watched the movie. It's so weird. Especially because it's not in connection to, you know, you're not on Colbert trying to sell people on the movie.

You're not trying to entice people to go, they made it. You got their money. They're sitting in the theaters and it's like, hey man, once again, you made the right call. From me, Pedro Pascal. I'm looking directly at you. Yeah. Thank you for coming to the movies.

And if you're wondering who this guy behind me is, why that's Joseph Quinn from Stranger Things. You don't watch Stranger Things? Oh boy, then he's just some fucking guy to you. And I'm not going to introduce him. You'll see him in the movie. He'll just stand here with us. And I assume that they did several different takes of it,

which is also very funny because surely in one of them, he does talk, Joseph Quinn does talk. But the one that I watched, he doesn't. And that also means that the one that they chose, like I want to see all the ones that lost out to this one, because this one was not good. I mean, it's like, it is wooden, it's flat. It's clear that Pedro Pescal does not know what to do with his hands. And in fact, at one point, they cut in so that you don't have to look at his hands because it's very distracting.

Once he's made the wrong choice. And it's so strange. And surely there are other takes of this where they're like, that's not the one. I'm very curious what that is. We, I actually, I went to the movies. It's funny that you haven't gone in eight years. I went three days in a row. I saw, my wife and I saw Wicked twice.

And then I saw Gladiator by myself after that. And for the second Wicked, I'm always trying to time out my antics, so I miss all of that stuff. I miss all of the Nicole Kidman, Welcome to the Movies. I miss all the trailers, because I see them on YouTube all the time anyway. And I don't want to sit through the commercials and all that long bullshit. The seats are assigned, so we just try to time it out perfectly, so that when we sit, the movie starts. And our second time seeing Wicked, we really blew it.

We were like a full 20 minutes into the movie. They must've just cut the trailers or something. And then for Gladiator, I went solo for like a one o'clock in the afternoon show. It's just, conditions are perfect. And I did my favorite way to watch movies, go to Buffalo Wild Wings, grab a couple of beers, a one o'clock in the afternoon show. It's just, conditions are perfect. And I did my favorite way to watch movies, go to Buffalo Wild Wings, grab a couple of beers,

and then like saunter into the movie. And the second I sat down, Gladiator started, and it was just perfect. It was perfect, but I also looked out at my watch and was like, I really thought I was gonna be late for this movie. This is bad. We put too much stuff.

There's way too much Joseph Quinn standing silently before the movie. We got to cut some of that. Yeah, it's really, it's really odd. I didn't understand it at all. And I couldn't be like, hey, what the fuck was that? To everybody else. Cause like now gladiator has started.

What did you think of the movie, Dan? I, well, so Sorin, we talked about this last week. I know that I said I was gonna see Wicked and Gladiator. But I really wanted us both to see Wicked and then talk about Wicked. Because I thought it would be good podcast material for you as someone who doesn't know a lot about Wicked and me as someone who loves Wicked

to talk about the movie and get some real back and forth. And I brought it up so many times this weekend to silence from you. And then an hour before the record, when I'm asking if you saw Wicked or if we need to talk about something else, you're so excited to say that you saw the fucking,

the boy movie, you saw the Gladiator movie movie and all I wanted to talk about was wicked and we can't now and we can't do it next week Because then we won't be part of the discourse. So now we're just gonna talk about The stupid gladiator movie that was fine, and I liked it We could talk about wicked. I'll pretend I saw it I feel like I know enough about it. No you don't. I've seen The Wizard of Oz. We'll be fine. I want to talk about the sound mixing.

Oh Jesus. Yeah. No that's not good podcasting. Did you like Gladiator? Gladiator? Yeah. It's definitely a popcorn movie. It was like, it was real fun to watch it. It was so fun. But there's like, you know, story wise, it's like all over the place. And they made some really strange choices. Like not everyone's going to have to have an accent. Everyone can just do their own accent.

Me, is that another thing that's happening in movies and period pieces now? Or they're just like, do whatever you want. It doesn't have to be uniform. Especially Ridley Scott. Ridley Scott is like, you are from 1900 England and you were from Boston yesterday. That's when you and you're both hanging out together in medieval France. Yeah so like when Denzel Washington has a like a New York accent throughout some of it I'm like uh okay all right and then also I can't remember Connie Nielsen did they make her do an English accent in the first one?

Cause this one was something else. Absolutely no idea. But, accents certainly all over the place, tone a little all over the place. Sometimes it was like, definitely leading into the comedy. And one of the other, again, broadly liked it, it's fun. Every second that Denzel is on screen is amazing. He is the greatest actor of all time and that's all there is to it.

And I just love every second that you could see him. Just a lot of the criticisms that people lobby against him now are that he's always kind of doing Denzel and I understand that so therefore it's always right He's always correct. It's always awesome The movie itself though, I think it really does itself a disservice because they will Some of it is a carbon copy of the first gladiator. Yeah, and what I anticipated I understand that Decision but like Your it's to its detriment for this particular film to remind me of a much better movie that I saw

It's not just like echoes of gladiator. They like will because the eternity they'll felt very good they'll flash like scenes of Russell Crowe from the Gladiator. And I'm watching Paul Mascow, who I'm sure is talented, but I don't think he has the juice. And then they cut to, and I'm watching him like, you know, I'm watching the movie, I'm having a good time. Then they cut to Russell Crowe and I'm like, ah, that's a movie star, that's a movie.

Yeah. I don't even know what I know Paul Muskell from. He made a big splash for normal people, which was the Sally Rooney book that was like the book of the year everyone loved. And then they made it a horny miniseries. And he's charming and Irish and like new on the scene. A lot of people like him. I'm sure he's done other stuff that is like the, you know, this guy is the next big thing,

but maybe he is the next big thing, but not necessarily the next, not even the next Russell Crowe. He's just like not the, not gonna carry a blockbuster action movie. Yeah, we tried it. Uh, yes. Watching him, I was like, this guy is just sulking around a lot.

Like he doesn't do anything. And at one point he cries on camera in a, in the water. I won't say why, but he's like out in the sea and he's crying. And he does not like the keep your eyes open and cry, which is boy, tell tale. Like that's what you gotta do as an actor. Cause the minute that you go, and they close your eyes and turn your head to the side and open your mouth, it's like, oh, not a good look, man.

That's, somebody should have told you. Totally. No, that's what I did in high school theater because I couldn't cry. He's, yeah, he's fine. He's not allowed to be Irish in the movie. That didn't make sense to me. Everybody else could be what they wanted to be. I swear to God in the first one, I never noticed Connie Nielsen's accent.

She's Dutch, right? I have no idea. I think she's Dutch, but in this movie, she is not trying to do an accent at all. I think Ridley Scott was just like, nah, in this one we don't do it. I know that it's consistent. We're a previous character in this, but we're not gonna worry about that anymore.

Ridley Scott is just like, listen, I'm 81 years old. Yeah, he's old. I'm not canceled yet. Let's just keep making movies until either I die, get canceled, or the sun explodes. Did we find out from the last duel, that's the name of the movie? Yeah. Okay, did we find out from the last duel? That's name of the movie? Yeah. Okay, did we find out in the last duel that he doesn't nobody

touches his stuff like he writes it and he doesn't have somebody who's like helping him go over stuff and smoothing it. I don't know that we found that out. You might have found that out independent of me. I thought that were you reading articles without me? I found that out independent of me. I thought that were you reading articles without me? I think I might have seen that on Facebook. And and that made total sense for me with gladiator because it was like,

oh, we could have fixed some stuff here. We could have fixed a lot of stuff. The moment they got a big laugh in the theater, I don't think wasn't supposed to be funny. It's a scene where Connie Nielsen is coming back from having visited Gladiator Two and Pedro Pascal catches her and their husband and wife. And he's like, what were you doing?

She was like, I was seeing Gladiator Two. And then the maid, the chambermaid who's, I guess betraying her, we cut to her and she does this like creep behind the wall. She does the Homer Simpson disappearing in leaves thing. And everyone lost their shit. It's supposed to be a very tense moment. And everyone's laughing.

I was like, did Ridley Scott know? Did he put that in? Like, hey, this would be funny. And just like, let's change the mood for a second. I don't think so. I don't think so either. Just because you bring up Pedro Pascal, that is

such an odd sticking point in this movie because he there's a lot of good ideas in the movie. He starts out and we don't like him because of movie language. He is part of the army that is fighting Paul Mascow's part of the army. And we like Paul Mascow because he's on the poster. So the movie told us we like him.

And Pedro Pascal- Well, he kissed his wife while she was doing laundry. He's a good guy. Yeah, and Pascal not only is against him in this opening battle scene, he orders the shot that kills Paul Maskelle's archer wife. Spoiler alert, by the way. But you can't have a gladiator movie with living wives.

It just doesn't. It. Because then what would he be so mad about? Yes. Go home to your wife. So Pedro is like directly responsible for the death of the protagonist's wife. And then immediately after this battle,

Pedro is like, I don't want to do war anymore. I'm so tired of war. And the twin rulers of Rome, the twin Caesars are like, you gotta keep doing war. You gotta war more. And Pedro is like, then I guess I'm gonna have to do a coup because these guys are bad and I wanna save Rome, I think. So I'm gonna do my own coup.

And that's like a very interesting plot that is happening alongside Paul Mascaux's larger revenge plot that is much more familiar territory for a gladiator movie. And if you're going to 90% of the way cover gladiator again, just go 100% and excise the Pedro Pascal parts. I don't know why we're doing this, like this sort of secondary protagonist that at the end of the day, we know has to die somehow

because he killed the good guys wife Yeah, it was very strange. Yeah, his role does feel kind of like it just lifts out pretty easy. Yeah and it really I don't know any of the behind-the-scenes stuff, but it really seems like a gladiator 2 movie was announced and someone was like Pedro Pascal he is announced and someone was like, Pedro Pascal, he is so hot right now. And he would be great to slide in to a Gladiator movie. We all agree. Right. Yes. He would be a perfect choice to be this movie's Russell Crowe. And then they just went and got another one.

They got another. They got Paul Metzcal, who was probably a great actor. And like, well, now we've got two people who could be the gladiator, and that's too many gladiators. What do we do about it? And I don't think that the decisions they made were the correct ones. I think that. I mean, yeah, I guess it could have been

a really cool movie with him as the gladiator. Like an older gladiator, I guess. I thought all the fight scenes, by the way, were incredible. I thought the war fight scenes by the way were incredible. I thought the war would looked really good I thought that the the way that they Explored different things that would actually happen in the Coliseum was fucking rad where you're like, well, they fought tigers last time What could they fight this time? Maybe some like hairless baboons and then also that they they would flood the Coliseum I you know, they could actually have like

ship battles in it. And it was like, oh, we can do that now. Like we could show that. Yeah. And so we got to see all that. That was awesome. Sharks. It's fun. I mean, the hairless baboon scene was insane to me.

It was, it was, it was, it was good fun, but I don't think it was very clear to me what those animals were. And they're so CGI to hell. Yes, they are. I... This was like borderline Hunger Games to me. Where they're like, I know this is the past, but we scientifically engineered a new breed of killing monkey.

And here they are. Look how terrifying they are. So I expect that in the script he was like, what's scarier than a baboon? A baboon that has got that, what's that, propetia or whatever animal, yeah, that every animals get that makes them lose their hair. Mange. Yeah. Like a fucking terrifying baboon with mange

that doesn't even look like a real animal anymore. And when it's on a script, in the action lines of a script, you're like, fuck yeah, that sounds cool. But then when you see it, you're like, OK, so these like Resident Eagle, Eagle Bull monkeys. Yeah. Where do they find all of them? Yeah. It's truly just Ridley Scott trolling around the mildly interesting subreddit of Reddit and seeing a random post

that is like, did you know this is what a baboon looks like when it's shaved? And he's like, fuck, that's gross. Oh, imagine six of them biting you. It's going in my movie. Yeah. So here's a thing that I couldn't get past in this movie, Daniel, is that they made Paul Miscael, the son of Maximus.

Yeah. But they didn't have to do that. That was like such a weird thing that they didn't have to do. He could just, we know who he was in the first movie cause we all saw him and that's fine. He could be Spencer Clark's, what Lucius, is that his name? Yeah.

Yeah, so he could be, he could still be Lucius. He could be the son of the queen who's like been exiled and has to come back. Making him Maximus's son is such a weird choice that undoes a lot of shit from the first movie. Yeah. Because he doesn't really know Connie Nielsen. The first gladiator doesn't really know Connie Nielsen until he sees her when he's in prison. Yeah. And she is, she is allowed to fall in love with him because she's in the horrible situationship with Joaquin Phoenix's Commodus, who is like bad and incestuous. Russell Crowe is not allowed to love her because he's mourning his dead wife because,

because that's how, because we used to make proper movies in this country. Also, he, yeah, like the whole movie is about him getting back to his family. He is the quintessential family man with a child and a wife, and he just wants to go to the wheat field in heaven and go be with them. And he can't, can't die. He keeps not dying. And so to then also be like, oh, but also he used to fuck around. Like he used to do some shit. He used to get up to some shit. Right. A moment where he's like, but what if heaven's not real?

What if I don't really believe in it? I'd feel so dumb if I just died and that was it. So, yeah, it was I didn't I didn't care for that. I didn't care for them making him the son at all. Yeah. It's also it's. Not that we need to get this deep into the thought process of the movie because I don't think they thought this much about it, but it's a nature nurture thing, I guess, where like, I believe that Russell Crowe would raise a son in his image would realistically raise a gladiator two type person.

I don't think his goodness genes, like both his like moral upstand ability and his loyalty and his fighting ability would just get passed down through DNA. I don't think. That seems to be the movie's point. Even though Paul Miscael didn't know that he was Gladiator Jr.

He still carries all the attributes of someone who seems like they were raised by Gladiator Prime. It would be fun to explore that. I mean, hang a lantern on that. I want to see him having Jason Bourne moments in the beginning of the movie where like, he doesn't know why, but he fucking kicks ass at fighting.

There's gotta be some Roman scientists who like is doing the family tree and is like, you know, if we really wanted Rome to be the only country there is, we should probably get Paul Mascow fucking. We should probably just like be making gladiators because this is, do you see how good the first one was? And now this one is just as good as fighting?

That's nuts. We gotta harness that somehow. Yeah. I really liked the two Roman emperors. I really like Joseph Quinn and what, Fred? Hetchinger? Hitchberger? It can't be Hitchberger. That's what I've been saying, but there's no way it's Hitchberger.

Hitchinger? Yeah. Hitchinger? He's such a weirdo. He's such a weird dude. Everything he shows up in, I'm like, yes. And then I'm very uncomfortable watching him the whole time. Yeah. I, what a, what a gift that must be for actors. That is apart from Denzel just having the time of his life being Denzel in the past.

If you are a character actor trying to get into the Gladiator 2 movie, you want the modern Joaquin Phoenix part. You want the foppish, shitty, destined to die goober. And seeing the casting breakdown and realizing, there's two of them, ah, how exciting that must have been for young actors. I can't miss, yeah.

Yeah, two, and like one of them was just a little bit snottier and weirder than the other one. Yeah. I really liked, what a great role to play. And both of them are guys from like TV shows. Yeah. Like guys who are, it's wonderful. Okay, last thing I have to say about this movie.

It is a horror movie. That is grotesque. Yeah. It is, there is gruesome, gruesome. It's not just like, oh, in the gladiator ring, that's how it was. There's some of that. There's people popping

because they get hit by rhinos and stuff. But outside of that, just like, oh, in the gladiator ring, that's how it was. There's some of that. There's people popping because they get hit by rhinos and stuff. But outside of that, just like the treachery that happens within the movie, they, it is Cronenberg-esque. It's like they're gruesome in ways it does not have to be. Like sawing a head off. Sawing a head off. Yeah, like cutting somebody's stomach open.

Yeah. There's like stabbing somebody in the ear with a, stabbing their brain with a little pick. Yeah. Like stuff like that. Cutting an arm off before you kill somebody. Like it didn't have to be, that happens twice basically. And it's like, you weren't, you're defenseless.

I could have just like cut you. I could have just got you right in the organs. But nah, I think I want to, let's do it with this piece at a time. I'm like cutting off an arm and then the person be like, ah, fuck, that was my arm. And then getting like disemboweled. Right. Just for that person to be like, oh man, I'm down an arm. My life's gonna, this is gonna be really hard for the rest of my life, but it could be worse. And then it's like, you're right, it could be. Oh, okay. Well, I don't know why we just watched that.

Oh, and like a head makes an appearance for a very long time. A head gets played with. Yeah, a lot of head prop stuff. There's Paul, Mascal, bites a baboon. Yeah. Like he turns a little feral

and starts biting the monkey monsters and spits the monkey blood out. And everyone's like, that's cool. That's we like him as a fighter for doing that. It was like, I don't, I don't, I don't know about this, folks. I don't know. I understand what we're trying to say. But like at the end of the day, you've.

You showed me a man biting a monkey and I didn't want to see that. That's not like a like go back to showing me sharks in the Coliseum. That's what I wanted to see. I didn't want to see a monkey and I didn't want to see that. That's not like a, like go back to showing me sharks in the Coliseum. That's what I wanted to see. I didn't want to see him bite a monkey. I didn't know. Wait, yeah, baboons are monkeys, I think. Okay, anyway. Who cares?

He bites a monkey and I also didn't know how I was supposed to feel about that. I was like, he took it too far. He took surviving too far. And then later everyone's like hooping and hollering at him like they're monkeys. Like they're also baboons in the gladiator dugout. I don't know. And I'm like, oh, they're all making fun of him. And then it was like, no, they were all like, that was impressive. Like that was, that was what I was supposed to be getting from it. And I was like, okay, well,

I missed that. I thought that I thought I was supposed to be getting from it. And I was like, okay, well, I missed that. I thought that, I thought biting a monkey was a step too far. Yeah. And that's, I know it's the past and no one's showering or anything like that, but I feel like even if I'm, if I went to go see the gladiator fight, uh, I'm still like, ah, he's going to get sick. There's no way he's not sick from biting a monkey. A monkey with monkey with with

Mange yeah, there's no way he didn't get something out of that or ringworm or something Last thoughts they call him Hano in the movie right Hano. Yeah, but his name is Lucius Yeah, you can't say his name so One of the things that there's two things that took me out of the movie a lot of parts. One of them, and this is on me, I accidentally got the movie with closed captions, so I had the words on screen the whole time. Okay. Didn't hate it, but I did miss some spectacle. And two, uh, Hano is, is like a childhood nickname, because one of my brother couldn't

say Daniel, but he could say Hano. And so I would just call that familiarly for a very long time. And so whenever they're like, Hano, I'm like, hmm, I'm coming. I wonder if you have gladiator blood. Ooh, should I bite a monkey? I love I let's baby steps like let's fight an army first. Okay. Yeah, gotta lose. Yeah. But then yeah, then you'll get an opportunity to buy. All right, I think we can call it there. That was a yeah. That's'll get an opportunity to play. Way ahead of you.

All right. I think we can call it there. That was a yeah, that's fun. It's fun to talk about gladiator. I'm glad that you did that with me. I will. I'm not even going to promise that I can see what it is. It's OK. I only wanted to talk about it today. And I thought conditions were perfect because I said I wanted to. And it was it

But you're right it is in the air like it's gonna be too late later There's a lot. I'm I'm very interested in it based on all the interviews and stuff. I'm very interested in these people I Understand that you haven't seen a movie in theaters in eight years And you have a buddy in town that you haven't seen in a while and And of course you're going to see a nighttime show of gladiator. And here I am, childless and on hiatus at work, seeing Wicked two days in a row in theaters. Like, what the fuck, man? I saw it once for each of us, Soren. Can't get it together.

All right, everyone. Thanks for listening to the podcast. This is Quick Question with Soren and Daniel. You knew that. You can find both Daniel and I on Blue Sky. We are blowing up over there. We're just doing jokes. It's fun.

It's fun time. Nah, it's getting worse. It's getting a little worse over there. We should have pulled up the ladder, Sorin. Ha ha ha ha ha. You can't find us on X, but you might still find Quick Question over there. There are sometimes a little snippets of this podcast.

You can see videos of us doing this. Also, if you wanna watch the entire podcast, you can do that on YouTube. We film the entire thing and we make a lot of great facial expressions. I'll have you know. I think that if you watch it, you get a whole new experience because we do, as the other person is telling a story,

you see our disbelief. You see us like, you see us mostly just waiting to talk. You can also find us on Patreon and Apple. Dan has a watch band. That's what I've been playing with today. If you guys are curious at home, this is the, you only get this content if you watch us on YouTube.

This is a watch band. And that's why I was not making eye contact with the camera for most of the episode. Cause I can, I can click it into place. That's pretty exciting. Yeah. You can find us on Patreon. We do release Patreon content, special content,

every other week. You can also find that if you subscribe to your Apple podcast. And, oh, me Rex, gotta mention them. They did our theme song. I stopped writing this down. Is that clear? You can find us on Instagram. You can find me, Rex, anywhere you listen to music, go to me, Rex.bandcamp.com. That's like a Jack ladder or Jack ladder. Okay, bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. So what's your favorite? Who did you get? Who will I be? Who will I remember? Words without a word? Word and order? Guide me not? Oh forget it!

Sore and booby, Daniel O'Brien Two best friends and comedy writers If there's an answer they're gonna find it I think you'll have a great time here I think you'll have a great time here I think you'll have a great time here