Sardonicast - Sardonicast #05: The Needle Drop, Dancer In The Dark

Episode Date: April 11, 2018

Special Thanks to Our Guest Anthony Fantano! https://www.youtube.com/theneedledrop Twitter: https://twitter.com/sardonicast Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/sardonicast Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sardonicast Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/9vG73zS Ralph's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/ralphthe... Alex's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/IHEOfficial Adam's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/YourMovi... Alex's Twitter: https://twitter.com/IHE_OFFICIAL Ralph's Twitter: https://twitter.com/ralphsepe Adam's Twitter: https://twitter.com/2gay2lift Adam's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/YMS Ralph's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ralphthemovie... Intro music by: https://www.youtube.com/user/anUnkind... Timestamps: 00:00 - Our Process (Continued from Last Week) 27:50 - Dancer in the Dark (SPOILER DISCUSSION) 1:16:50 - Q&A Adum's Music Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/anUnkind... Adum's Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/adumplaze Recommended Music Videos: Welcome Home - https://youtu.be/305ryPvU6A8 Tongues - https://youtu.be/AqmwKi6KOSw Turn Down for What - https://youtu.be/HMUDVMiITOU Sledgehammer - https://youtu.be/OJWJE0x7T4Q Only - https://youtu.be/mDsqpeiTqg8 Battles- https://youtu.be/pkgQ88G8Hj8 The Writing's On The Wall - https://youtu.be/m86ae_e_ptU The One Moment - https://youtu.be/QvW61K2s0tA Take On Me - https://youtu.be/djV11Xbc914 You Don't Know Me - https://youtu.be/UskSU5BoyZs Legend Has It - https://youtu.be/vWaljXUiCaE Close Your Eyes - https://youtu.be/PkGwI7nGehA Clint Eastwood - https://youtu.be/UclCCFNG9q4 Closer - https://youtu.be/PTFwQP86BRs Fantasy - https://youtu.be/6QFwo57WKwg Loan Digger - https://youtu.be/UbQgXeY_zi4 Kangaroo Court - https://youtu.be/CJinWua98NA Frontier Psychiatrist - https://youtu.be/U8BWBn26bX0 Butterfly Caught - https://youtu.be/g45PgMJMqLY Dear God - https://youtu.be/8BnFowzj9ck Music Scene - https://youtu.be/NhheiPTdZCw Hey Jane - https://youtu.be/CncZorQNQ1E Eh - https://youtu.be/uOJFhKriSH8 You might think he loves you for your money but I know what he really loves you for... - https://youtu.be/y2cQvZPX3OY Double Helix - https://youtu.be/tWzJhkrZm5Y Hustle Bones - https://youtu.be/dCgxi-h1PoI Alex's Film Recommendation is Boy (2010)

Three, two, one. Sardony Castano here, the internet's busiest movie podcast. And it's time for me to introduce who's all here. I am Adam from YMS. Who else is here with me right now? Anthony from the needle drop. Hell yeah. Oh, perfect. Wow. I just jumped in. I took charge. He fucking sniped you. He fucking sniped you. You betas. But we always argue about who goes first. That's true. We're too polite. I'm Alex from I hate everything and finally. I'm Ralph from Ralph the movie maker. YouTube.com slash movie maker.

Do that every week too. Yeah. What's up everybody? It's annoying. How are we all doing? How are we doing boys? I'm pretty good. Had an interesting week.

Not really. So how does it feel to be our first podcast guest? Ralph. I'm pretty excited to be surrounded by us. such a, I guess a bunch of assholes? What a frownies?

You know, what a panel of internet celebs. Yeah. A diverse group of asses. I feel like I'm the target of the gang bang right here. So. Yeah?

Oh. Perfect. That's how I feel. It's like the internet's version of the Oscars where we all just congratulate each other. Look at how famous and popular we are. Congrats everybody.

We're the best. It gives you some. Congrats. Let's throw candy in Normies. Everyone gets in the Lord. Do you love me? I love me. I love me.

I can't wait for the speeches. We have nothing plan. Off to a great start. What a shit show. And so we don't even know how this is going to work dynamic-wise with podcast guests. We're kind of just feeling it out. So no pressure, Anthony. Well, you know, honestly, it's a lot like a relationship.

The more you actually get really meta and talk about it, the more you actually just ruin it. So let's just get into the top of the hand and just see how it's, All right. So last week we started a discussion on the creative process of our video making. And we only got through half of it. We kind of just started talking about how we got started with our videos and what drove us to create our channels. So today we're going to continue that discussion. Since Anthony was not here in the last episode, Anthony, how did you start making videos? I basically got started making videos as kind of an experiment because for well over a year, I was running a music blog that really wasn't getting off the ground. Like I was getting an okay amount of traffic, but nothing I could live off of or nothing that was telling to me, yeah, I'm really on the right path here. And before getting into covering music or music journalism or even just regular journalism,

I was a pretty big YouTuber and YouTube fan as far as just like avidly watching some other people. and just like taking in a lot of content on the platform. And out of all the years that I had been on there since like 2006 or so, I'd never seen anybody kind of formally reviewing an album on a regular basis. Like I didn't know there to be a channel about reviewing music, so I figured I would just try my hand at it. From what I understand, you used to include clips of songs more regularly and then kind of just gave up on that from content ID or something?

Yeah, pretty much. I did that throughout all of 2009, and this was before you pretty much started a channel on YouTube, and it was just automatically, like, partnered. You know what I mean? Before then there was like a partnering process. Like your channel had to get to some of views and subscribers, and then you would sort of submit to that, submit to sort of the partnership program, and then they would kind of overview your channel and make a secret, quiet decision

as to whether or not they were going to let you be partnered or not. like some of my friends or people who I knew on the platform would wait like months before they got like either rejected or an answer or anything. YouTube was a very different place back in the day. Yeah, we had the star system. You either get one or one of stars. Oh, man. There's like an old screen cap I found on my computer of the old channel layout.

Yes. I miss it. And you could leave a comment on the channel. And also I think like I think either ads or comments were on the side or were they always underneath the description was on the side. Yeah. They were on the left. Yeah, they were at the side.

Comments were on the side. Yeah, and the subscribe button. And people were like, be sure to subscribe to my channel, and they point to the left. Oh, I miss those. I miss the, I think it was the second generation

of YouTube comments. Remember when it was just two top comments? Yeah, and they changed after every thousand comments, it would be a new top two. I miss that. The thing I missed the most about YouTube, the old YouTube,

and it's something that I wish that they could effectively bring back in maybe a way that's a little bit more effective because I understand why they got rid of it because people would just span the shit out of videos that were bigger and more popular. But given a lot of the political and social discourse going on on the platform now, like one of the most interesting things about old YouTube was just the response system. Like you could literally post a video as a response to another video and then you'd be able to watch the video and underneath it you would see all the responses.

But then after a while, you know, the responses would only be quote unquote response. Because you know you would see just like a bunch of spam. Yeah, exactly. You just see spam and bullshit down there that has nothing to do with the video that you're responding to people would just label their videos as responses in order to try to get more traffic on to them Maybe there's some kind of way to just disincentivize people from spamming Yeah, that tool, but I kind of thought that that was a A cool way of allowing people to upload and interact with each other. I miss it a lot Yeah, me too But apparently I don't know like it seems like a lot of the times companies

just remove certain features and they say, well, nobody was using it, but everybody I talked to was like, yeah, I used it. Like, I don't know. Yeah, I saw people using it all the time. People used it, but it got abused so often that you can't have the video responses anymore. Between the reply girls and the people you did it just for attention. I completely understand why it was exploited.

Yeah, it was related to shit. It was really exploited, but I don't know. There might have been a way that they could have figured out. I don't know. Listen, I mean, people, a lot of the time, like in groups, people are very much like cattle. and that's not to sort of like shit on the human race or anything. The thing is if you effectively come up with a way to sort of guide them into participating in a kind of behavior that you want them to, they'll do it. There's a million social experiments that kind of support that idea.

It's funny because as soon as you bring that up and say like, yeah, most people aren't leaders, everybody's like, well, I'm a leader. Yeah. Like nobody thinks that they're a person that is easily persuaded or influenced. You know and whether or not you are a leader kind of depends I think on the context or the situation that you're in like Some people who might take a leadership role maybe you're a leader in some things exactly So Alex Yes Adam What the fuck is your dumb video making process for your stupid

Videos for babies We're very mean Alex for some reason Yeah I was being as nice as possible I was holding back a lot I mean that's considering I was considering I was very mean that's considering I was being polite. I mean, he is the best YouTuber here, so we just have to kind of break his balls a little bit. Aww. That's so nice.

How does it feel that the needle drop thinks you're the best YouTube? We do it at a jealousy. Yeah, that's right. Your channel sucks. Fuck you. I'm so confused. If I saw you in person, I would... Body slam me?

Beat the fucking shit out of you, and then I assume that, just like any other moron, you just keep your... You just keep your fucking computer perpetually logged into your channel, so I'm going to log on to that shit. and just delete that shit. I would beat the shit out of you and give you a kiss. And then after all of it, after I deleted your fucking channel, I'll give you a kiss. Anthony, you never knew you were this vicious. I said I'd give me a kiss. This is, uh, am I now in an abusive relationship with Anthony?

And also, have you seen me negatively review an album? You know I can be mean. Oh, well, yeah. Who's the guy who made that worst album that year? The guy who used to be like a celebrity. Corey Feldman. That was a great album. video that's easily the best video

it's a classic what was it called like only only to the something it is it is a classic record in a way that album art you see in the music videos right oh my god you know so terrible about what's so terrible about that record and and me kind of influencing people to listen to that album one I have been fucking banned from

his live shows meanwhile nice while I see pictures I see videos of his live shows and it's my fucking fans going to his live shows so it's like the only reason you have people lining up to see you at these fucking venues is me and I can't go see it.

You won't let me in. So that's one thing it's aggravated. Yeah, Daddy Derek. It's one thing it's aggravated me on Twitter. Exactly. Daddy Derek. They're there to see him ironically, right? Daddy Derek needs to send you a fucking thank you card every year. Yeah.

Anyway, that's one aggravating thing. The second aggravating thing is that what's so shitty about a lot of these streaming platforms is that when they recommend you something in quotations, they're not really doing it based on taste or anything that actually links one artist to another artist artist artist artistically. It's all just listening algorithms and listener habits. So, of course, people who watch me religiously are listening to shit like Death Grips and Animal Collective and Danny Brown and Swans and so on and so forth.

So, of course, now when you listen to Death Grips on Spotify, one of the first recommended artists that pops up is like Corey Feldman and vice versa. That's awesome. You listen to Corey Feldman. It's like, hey, you like Corey Feldman? You might also like Swans or you might also like Danny Brown. You might also like Death Grip. I think there's some like really terrible movies.

I've recommended that didn't have many, much attention on the IMDB, and then you go to them, and it's like, recommended for you, Synectekee, New York. Yes, like next to like a Neil Breen film. Because I have an IMDB, and like, whenever my movies are linked, people like this movie,

well, my account is, that's a long story, but we won't get in that. We explained it last time. But my I&B page, there's the movies I made, and then link to those are, oh, if you like Ralph's movies, you'll like Love on a Leash, you'll like

what are the endless amount of shitty movies we've reviewed stuff like that anyway chips chips chips chips is actually a great movie but chips a hoi

we asked Alex what his process was and then we completely derailed so I would like to apologize formally to Alex you only to apologize to me what is your creative process

before you make a video are you looking for something to hate and once you found the thing that you've hate like what do you what do you decide right then in there I decide if there's enough meat on the bone to fill out a 10 minute and one second video.

That's the most important thing, guys. Oh, 10 minute, one second. Uh-huh. You know that ad algorithm. How far back are we going here? We're going back to... Well, you explained to your roots last time. Okay, okay.

So, of course, you have to have an idea first, right? So I sit down, I think of something, man. You know what, I hate Supreme clothing. Let's see what we hear about Supernum and then and then like And then like every I'm sure like all of us We sit down, we we note

We brainstorm we oh you're not allowed to say Brainstorm What is it now? Why on? In this country in the UK Are not allowed to say brainstormed Is that like a Nazi reference now? Dude This country

Anyway that that's its own tangent But don't say anything You better watch yourself before the fucking government comes in You're gonna hear the fucking knock on the door with the silence. Well, let's just say that you committed the crime in another country that you're recording from somewhere else right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, I was in... Oh, my God.

So I don't think they can jail you if you said something in another country, can they? Is that a part of the law? I wouldn't put it past it. I don't think it's worth risk. Yeah, so... Well, that's the thing, man. I don't want to go down this route because this is a rabbit hole right here. Yeah.

Going back to the vids, you write videos. You can spend, I don't know, demanding on the subject, big chunky amounts of time, coming up with ideas, writing whatever comes to your mind, and you eventually get it into a state, which is, you think it's finished, you maybe get a couple people to read it, and then we move on to my personal least favorite part of making videos,

which is the reading of your script. I don't know how you guys feel about the, audio bit. I personally find it really frustrating because... Yeah, one of my least favorite parts too. Yeah, because like, when you're editing a video, you have complete and total control over this machine that like when you press right click, it's always going to right click. But there's just something to me and the way my mind works or when I'm reading the words of a page. And I imagine the way I'm talking, I want it to sound a certain way.

And if I can't get my voice to sound the way I really want it to or the inflections to sound the way I really want it to. I find it really frustrating, and it's one of these things where it's like, if you've written a video about, I don't know, the Smosh movie and it's five pages long, that can be,

I don't know what it is for you guys, but I can record upwards of like an hour plus of audio for a video that is edited down to 15, 20 minutes. Yeah, it's about the same for me. I do a lot of multiple takes. My least favorite part is when, if my mouth is too dry, I start hearing these like little,

like, lip smacks. which, by the way, Ralph, you do a lot after editing this podcast. You know, apparently biting into an apple is the best thing to do before. Oh, perfect. I take a note from Simon T's. Apparently it solves that issue.

I didn't know that. Do any of you guys do like vocal warm-ups or anything like that? No. No? Well, how close do you stick to your script? How close do I? Yeah, I want to know how all of you do.

Kind of religiously, but now I throw in way more stuff because you just become more confident in what you're doing. So I don't know what you guys are like in terms of that sort of thing. Are you the same way, Adam, or Anthony? Because I think Anthony's way more improv. I used to do a vocal warm-ups when I worked some weekends in public radio to sort of just get ready on the microphone because I wanted to kind of warm up the basier side of my voice as I was kind of talking into the microphone.

And when you're on public radio, you have to have this very even, you know, very flat easy tone you know you're listening to WNPR WNPR blah WNPR blah WNPR blah and you know you don't want to just be too animated on the microphone or anything like that I mean for me personally like Adam was saying I just kind of got to make sure my lips aren't too dry or whatever or certain words become hard to say like still to this fucking day I still I still have trouble every once in a while with the the word album yeah that's such an important word if I'm throwing it too quickly into a sentence, like, it'll album, you know, like the B won't actually come out.

It'll just be album. Sometimes the word film gets me. Yeah, and I'll, and I'll just need to, like, redo the whole sentence just to say album. Or maybe I'll just, like, switch over to the word LP. Just, like, change it up a little bit because sometimes it's a little easier to say. But if you're just always saying LP all the time, like, my fans are going to pick up on that as a meme and just be like, why is he saying LP so many times? Anthony, do you, you strike me as having kind of. a looser format. Do you script your videos in the same way as a more kind of note-based?

I do have a script, but it depends on the review. I mean, I do have quickie reviews every once in a while that I do where I don't do a whole lot of heavy editing or writing beforehand because the issue that I have with the album or my critique of the record is just so basic and surface level. Like the flaw of the album is so clear as day that you don't really need to dive too deeply into it. Another reason I'll kind of do one of those reviews is maybe I wasn't getting that many requests about it, but I kind of felt like I should talk about it, because it's sort of relevant to at least a section of the musical conversation. But typically, I go into a review pretty heavily with like a bullet pointed script,

a bullet pointed script of just like everything that I want to say about the record, the flaws, the pros, the cons, the positive highlights on the record, the worst songs on the album, what I think could have been better about the record, overall what I think the artistic statement of the album is. Of course there are some albums that don't warrant a lot of this discussion because some records really aren't that deep at the end of the day. But on the occasion that you do have, like to pimp a butterfly, for example, you know, not only will I hit upon all of those things,

but the review is going to end up being 20 minutes. And chances are I've shot like maybe an hour of like footage of me fucking up or kind of redoing lines or retooling things that I'm trying to say just to get like the right thing out. Have you guys ever done a video entirely through, like without a script completely improvised?

Have you ever done that? That's almost every single one of my videos. I don't do scripts. The only, um... The YMS ones? The YMS ones, I take point form notes just to make sure that I don't miss anything. And even, I mean, there's been,

YMS reviews where I haven't. I kind of see it as you know I could be typing up a script at my desk or I could be writing it just by speaking one sentence at a time and cutting out the middleman you know because I can just write it as I say it

is that's my kind of mindset there if you're working with all that's not working you just cut it out and just re-record whatever. Yeah with my format like every single sentence is chopped up anyway. So I don't need to have super long form single takes in my videos.

I'm essentially just doing jump cuts without the video. So I can press record, say, so I just saw blah, blah, blah, and it was blah. Stop record, think about what I'm going to say next, et cetera. So that's usually what I do. I never would have guessed that. I would have guessed that you used a script.

No, no, I never use a script. You don't like jot down all the things? things that you want to say or you don't like jot down. If it's a larger form YMS review, I'll have point form notes. I'll write it in a way that only I could possibly understand it anyway. So I'll be like, dumb thing here. And maybe I'll have a time stamp. So like for wrinkle in time, you didn't write any of that.

You were just like, bam. Oh, wrinkle in time, I took no notes at all. Because I don't want to be an asshole in the theater. Oh, it's, I didn't mean like writing down while. I mean, just like writing down what you were going to. say before. Yeah, I don't think any of us during the movie. Here's what I did for Rinkle in Time and what I do

with a lot of the quickie reviews or, you know, in-theater kind of reviews is I'll watch it with a friend or by myself, but if I have a friend, then pretty much right after the movie, I'll be like, okay, let's recap

what just happened, and we'll talk about it, and I'll be, you know, jotting things down in my phone during that point in time of just like, okay, I want to talk about this. I want to talk about this. Just while it's fresh in my head. But there's no script.

It's essentially just notes that I'm jotting down. So I remind myself to talk about certain aspects of the film or certain plot points that were stupid. Well, no, that actually makes a lot of sense because the process of doing that is a lot like writing it down in a way. Because when you are experiencing something with a person and then you're able to talk to that person afterwards about that experience, in a way they're able to actually validate what you went through and kind of confirm whatever it is your thinking, whereas by yourself you kind of need to maybe put a little bit more thought into it to kind of remember or recall what exactly it is that you watched. I mean, one of the fastest and quickest reviews, and one of the better reviews I had ever done

actually was a recent one where I did a review of Eminem's Revival album, which was an incredibly shitty album. Oh yeah. And an incredibly negative review. But throughout the entire listening session of that of that album, I actually had a friend that I was listening to the album with online. And throughout the whole thing, we were just like, you know, just aghast of just how many shitty moments were on the record, number one.

And number two, like pretty much anything and everything I thought about the album, I was able to bounce off of him instantly. And he was like, yeah, that's absolutely the case. You know, there was before I might need to listen to things like two or three times just to confirm like, okay, that. That's actually like what it is or what I've heard or how I feel or what exactly is kind of being, I guess, kind of communicated here. I've got a little bit more to say about my process, but what about you, Ralph? You didn't really talk about yours that much.

I'm like you, Adam. I just make it up as I go along. Yeah. I don't know about you guys. If you're reviewing something bad, you tend to write down way more notes than if it's good. Yeah, I do. Yeah? Depends what kind of bad does it depends what kind of good.

If something's, yeah, if something's like really good, it just pours out of you like, oh, man, the cinematography was great and the music was great. But if it's something bad, you just want to write down everything that you could possibly think of because you don't want to miss anything because there's so much bad shit in it. That's usually how I tend to work. I would say that that's true for a lot of movies, but my longest running series is my Synecdekee, New York one. And that's a movie I really like. So it really depends on just how much there is to pick. up on when it comes to a film. We're going to have to end this segment of the podcast really shortly.

I just wanted to... Oh, no. Well, yeah, we got to... I'll let you end it, Ralph. I'll give you a little bit... The last word. ...to finish it off because he didn't really say much. Oh, no, I don't even want to say...

I want to ask Anthony more shit. Okay, let's do one more question on it and then we'll go on to another thing. Well, I was going to say, Anthony, how do you... Because you make so many videos, I think, way more than any of us do. Yeah. How do you keep doing... I mean, essentially, it's the same format every time. How do you change it up?

Do you ever find yourself getting bored with it? You know, how do you reinvent yourself every once in a while to try to just keep it fresh? Well, honestly, it does kind of get to a point where I'm, my videos on my review channel, it's really just like kind of like working on an assembly line. And that's mostly because I don't see my videos as being particularly creative. I see them more as just like, this is a service I'm providing. And not to say that like, you know, my opinion is God's gift to the earth or anything like that. It's not like that.

But I have an audience that is demanding that of me. And I'm just like trying to supply them with that. Yeah. You're definitely the movie guy. Not the movie. The music guy. Like the whole internet goes to. My apologies for saying.

Yeah. But I mean, it does get, you know, monotonous, which is why I try to, you know, break it up and do more recreational activities in my personal life. I mean, lately I just kind of spend a lot of time with my family. And that's kind of how I unplug. but previously, you know, a great way to unplug through that and just really kind of break up that cycle was the meme channel. And that obviously I've sort of laid to rest because I just can't fucking monetize it on YouTube.

However, I have been shopping it around to just kind of see if other platforms might be interested in supporting it. But, you know, at the end of the day, I'm not sure. I mean, I'm exploring it, but I'm not sure if I want to just like turn the meme review into another needle drop. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Because part of the thing about that is the plan was that I could really do anything. You know, I could get up in the morning and just decide, well, this week I'll do a meme review or this week I'm going to come up with a totally different segment and just fucking wing it and, you know, staple myself on camera. Yeah, exactly. And just like go fucking totally nuts. You know, but the Fantano channel, which I started a little under a year ago, has been a pretty good outlet for me to just talk about a variety.

of different things that, you know, I don't typically have the opportunity to, on the main channel, or if I do, I have to write this, like, super long think PC type video and just take it super serious and do a lot of deep research, whereas it's kind of easier. Yeah, you know, it's great to just be able to kind of rant on some music news and stuff like that. And recently I've been working on a lot of music for the new Calchukesta mixtape. So that's kind of been a bit of an outlet. And I've been trying to make sure I play bass more this year. and that's been an outlet.

So, you know, I'm kind of just like treating the needle drop as a job because it is. You know, it's my job. I treat it as a job. I treat it as my business. And, you know, I just like try to keep my face to the fucking fire, feet to the fire, face on the grinder, wherever the fuck you want to put it. And just like continue my hustle on that. Were you just slapping yourself?

Yeah, I was just like putting my fist in my fucking hand. Just like, you know, continue to beat the pavement, you know. And just, you know, keep it up. I mean, it is kind of like a repetitive action, but honestly, it's not necessarily a bad thing to me because, again, I just kind of see it as like me providing something that my audience is demanding and I want to do that. You know, over the years, it's kind of like taking me a while to kind of get myself in the headspace where I have a certain thing that my audience is looking for me to do and I need

to find a way to balance it with, hey, I'm going to be talking about maybe some stuff here and there that I'm not that huge on. And then kind of breaking that up with reviews that I know I'm going to be excited about reviews that. I know I'm going to be turning other people onto reviews that. I know I'm going to be really excited to tell the audience what's great about the album. And that's kind of what keeps me saying, I think, you know, doing my best to give myself balance where I'm only exposing myself to so much stuff that I think is absolute shit. Or just like super mediocre or super underwhelming. And I think my audience is kind of the same way.

They only want to see me do so many negative reviews. And they only want to see me do so many positive reviews too, because they'll start getting on my ass if like everything's a six, everything's a seven, everything's an eight. Yeah, exactly. And it's funny because like throughout all my years doing this, every year as far as like the points at which some of my favorite or my least favorite albums will come out is never the same. It's never constant.

you know, I'll have moments where maybe I'll have given like, you know, five eights or a couple nines within like two months and then I'll just have like this total fucking dry spell for an entire season and like everything is fucking suck. Everything sucks or everything's underwhelming. And then all of a sudden like maybe at another point it all of a sudden they'll just like be this huge flow of like great records all of a sudden. I love when audience members start to see temporary patterns like that and they're like, wow, you've changed. It's like, well, I don't know, give it some more time, you know.

Well, everyone's changed. Yeah. Well, this is true. There is, there was a bit more that I wanted to say, but we're going to change on to the next topic. If, uh, we'll talk about it next time. Well, yeah, we'll talk about it next time. And also, you can actually watch a lot of my editing process on my Twitch channel, uh, link in the description, I guess. I do some editing streams there. I also game, but you can see the whole process there if you're confused about it. But yeah, I'll talk about that more time and more on the blah blah on the next podcast. We're going to talk about a movie. So last episode at the end of the podcast, I recommended the film,

Dancer in the Dank, Dancer in the Dark by Lars von Trier. Or sorry, Lars, okay, I'm a Nazi von Trier. And so we're going to have a little discussion on this film. It is a spoiler discussion. So if anybody doesn't want this film spoiled for them, and it is a movie I would recommend, then just go watch the movie right now or skip this part of the podcast. And yeah, if you want to be involved in the discussion next week, there will be a film recommended at the end of this episode as well.

So who wants to start this off? Should I start? May I start? Yeah, go for it. May I start? Go for it. What's this movie about? I just, well, should you describe what it's about, Adam?

I don't care. Well, I mean... You don't care. The people need to know. It's your movie. Just describe briefly what it's about. Dancer in the Dark is a collaborative effort between Danish artistic director, Lars von Trier and Icelandic, singer.

Bjork and she's Icelandic right she's from Iceland yeah that sounds right that's what I thought wherein Bjork plays I think she's in the film she's from Czechoslovakia or something she's anyway she's a Czechoslovakian mother yeah she she plays a foreign mother who moves to America with hopes and dreams and always adored America from what she saw in American media particularly musicals, which she adores. She's working several jobs at once while living in a trailer in the back of somebody else's property so she can save up money for surgery for her son

who will eventually become blind if he doesn't get an operation. And meanwhile, she is going blind throughout the course of the entire film, and she's keeping that a secret from everybody. She doesn't want anyone to know that that's what she's doing. And so she's tirelessly sacrificing herself for the sake of her child, who she wants to have a better future without the pain that she's going through. Nice. Good description.

And she's also a daydreamer. Yes. Yeah. She's got her heads in the clouds. Yes. So while she is quite focused on this goal of raising this money for her child surgery, she kind of dips into a lot of these very odd musical passages where all of a sudden she's hearing music in her head

and people around her dancing and these are all just like kind of these It's her escape. Weird fantasy, yes, it's her escape and it's like these weird fantasy scenes in the movie which given the tone of the film and given how sad the film is, at first you don't quite expect. Like you don't expect it to just kind of break into a musical. Not at all. Like 40 minutes into the movie.

That's why I said not to look anything up about it. Yes, I wanted to thank you. I wanted to thank you, Adam, for saying not to do any research on it. Because I don't know about you guys, but I thought it was such a fucking, like, powerful, magical moment when the music began. Yeah. Yeah, it's great when it's delayed like that, because you're really not expecting it. You get accustomed to a certain presentation of the film, and then it just completely shifts gears. And it's like, oh, we're also offering this, you know?

It doesn't... I was going to say... I was going to say the first, like, half of the movie, I hated it. I thought, like, the editing was horrible and the camera work was, like, distracting and just... I was just, like, fucking annoyed by it. Basically, I mean, even when that first musical number started up, I was like, why is this shot like shit? But then there's that point where I believe it's when she kills the neighbor. And from that point on, I totally got why everything up to that point had been so deep.

distractingly like just shitty and off-putting and weird and I think from there I thought the movie was absolutely brilliant and from that point on I was on board completely that's interesting because I'm like the opposite really preferred the first half yeah you did I thought the editing and the first half was just like it was distracting how bad it was and I didn't know why it was as bad as it was have you seen many uh von truer films I've had I have I've seen as more recent ones and the editing in all of them is bad. And that's why, especially an infomaniac is just like, the cuts are just like the worst.

But this one's, like, this one's especially bad to where it was like distracting. Like he would just cut people off. I didn't find it bad. Oh, I thought it was just terrible. And I didn't know why he was doing it. But then like halfway through, you realize he's making no, it, well, I guess

kind of, but it wasn't intentional in a good way. But then you realize he's making the anti-musical. That's what it is. He took all the elements of a musical. twisted it on its head and made it like as fucked up and dark as possible. And then once I realized that was the point of the movie, I thought it was brilliant. Yeah. Yeah, like everything that could ever be happening to this woman that's horrible is happening to this woman.

Yeah. Yeah. And she gives that line like nothing dreadful ever happens in a musical. I agree with what Ralph is saying about the movie overall. However, I think it gets better much earlier than what he's saying. saying in my opinion. At first, I was sort of off put by a lot of the framing and a lot of the editing. And the way that I would describe it is that I didn't feel like I was so much watching dialogue or watching scenes in a film as much as I was watching like the impression of dialogue

or the impression of scenes in a film, almost like we were being kind of sped through all of these somewhat intimate conversation between all of these characters in order to kind of do just like a really fast intro to everyone and sort of get an idea very quickly as to what everybody's relationship is to one another. And then once we kind of get into the point where Bjork has admitted that she's going blind and we kind of understand this woman's tragedy and we kind of get exactly what exactly her motivation is through the rest of the film, then after that, in my opinion, the editing smoothed out a little bit and didn't seem quite as, it didn't seem quite as messy, at least purposefully.

I mean, obviously, it's all intentional at the end of the day. I mean, you know, you're talking about a film that was recorded entirely on handheld camera. You know, like, of course, there's, their understanding going into that, that, okay, some of this is going to be shaky, some of this is going to be messy. However, we're fine with that. That's what we want. We want that chaos. You know, if you look at a lot of the editing during the musical numbers, it's especially chaotic. And And that's actually where I think some of the very fast editing, some of the very close framing throughout the film kind of is really to the movies benefit because kind of that chaos of all the cuts and all the closeups throughout those musical numbers is kind of exciting and thrilling. Yeah. And, you know, some of the choreography was really good too.

And to sort of see a lot of it so close up and some of the cuts to be so fast is kind of like you're seeing this dance number from numerous angles and like a really crazy. aggressive way it was kind of thrilling and very unique a couple hours before I watched the film I was just browsing like Louis Thoreau documentaries on Netflix so then when I I loaded up the film and it was like shot and edited in pretty much the exact same way as these documentaries I was watching and I was like oh that's really weird I was not expecting that but I I didn't I didn't pull me out in the same way it did for you though I felt it kind of it almost drew me in more because it's just something I haven't seen before.

It's really weird and like shot like a grainy home movie or something, you know? It wasn't the camera quality that was the issue. It was just the editing and the way he shot it would like people were just out of frame. What do you, what exactly about the editing do you take issue with?

Do you, uh, is it that each shot kind of the audio cuts or like the fact that it's just like really specific things like I would have to angle or exactly that too jump cuts it's just like I got to watch the movie with you well and just show you like it was just it was distracting is is my issue with it like I couldn't even get involved in the story because I was just like why is this it's like giving me a headache well to to an extent for me it was it was the same thing it was kind of difficult to take in the dialogue when it felt like almost like again I wasn't listening to or watching an entire conversation going on but rather

clips of a conversation and they were just kind of cutting to the most essential parts that would move the storyline forward. However, as I was kind of going through the film, it was kind of a mix of, I think it got better. They were consciously making it less chaotic so that you can get into the drama of it more. And also, I think I kind of got used to the aesthetic of the film as it was going on too.

I started to like it. On a second watch, like, it's not distracting at all, honestly for me. Not as bad. Yeah, when you're expecting it and you kind of know where the film is going to go, it's probably a little easier to take it. Yeah, that's it too. I mean, he also calmed down a little bit, like you said, as it went along. And, like, the editing during the musical sequences was brilliant, because he edited like, it's a cluster fuck, which is what it is.

Yeah, and if you take for example, if you take, for example, the scene where, like, some of those initial conversations where she's talking to, what's the police officer's wife's name? She's having a very close, intimate conversation with her in the kitchen toward the beginning of the movie. Like, that's one of the more chaotic moments or a conversation with her friend. And that's one of the more chaotic moments during those early dialogue spots on the record. But if you contrast that with the whole scene where she shot the cop, you know, like that scene is there's not a lot of fast cuts. Every kind of piece of dialogue going on back and forth between them is is very clear and very logical. And it's like flowing in a way where you feel like you're experiencing all of it in real time, you know. And I will say, seeing a man beg a blind woman to shoot him to death is probably one of the most.

hilarious premises I've ever seen in a film in my entire life. Like, you're fucking blind as a bat, but please, shoot me. Kill me. You know when she misses twice? Yeah. It was so fucked up. It's like how much of the same time horrifying, too. Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. It was just disturbed. You don't know where the fucking bullets is going to go. It's like, seriously, how much of a pussy are you where you're just like, no, I can't shoot myself. I'll beg this blind woman to do it. That's his character. He's too much of a pussy to just be honest with his wife, you know?

Exactly. I mean, yes, exactly. To just be up front and say that he's lost all the inheritance money because she spends too much apparently. Yeah, yes. And that's another thing. It's like you can't just not keep giving your wife money. You have to keep giving your wife money. You can't shoot yourself either. He's a colossal piece of shit. Yeah, exactly. He's a colossal piece of shit. But, you know, he's too much of a, he's too much of a spineless loser to do that. But yet he'll just like totally rob this fucking blind lady. I was going to say rob her blind But that kind of seems like Like kind of weird and inappropriate But you know he'll totally rob her

And then he'll have her gun him down in his house But no I can't I can't tell my wife that I lost the money Yeah exactly It's just like it's like triple coward I don't know if I would have the guts to I don't know if I would have the guts to stand there and let a blind woman like shoot me Just going back to the presentation

Did you guys catch that The entire film was handheld aside from the dream sequence scenes, which were all completely stationary. I really liked that choice. I felt like that was very appropriate. And the dream sequences, you mean like the musical numbers?

Yeah. I mean, her daydreaming, yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, the musical numbers definitely had kind of like an idyllic look to them. Like, like, for one thing that I noticed about the editing is the court scene,

the color treatments they did on all of the scenes for the music. musical numbers were much more saturated and kind of had like a red, it had like a very bright reddish tint to them. But then when they cut back to the sentencing, like it was all very flat and gray and had kind of like a greenish undertone to it. I felt like, I don't know if I'm correct in saying this, but I feel like if Von Trier made this film today after having made so many other films and learning so much more

about lenses and cinematography that he might have just made this movie differently, I feel like when it comes down to the presentation of the juxtaposition between the two realities and how they're filmed, I feel like I would have appreciated even more juxtaposition. Like, I perhaps, you know, being shot on an entirely different camera or with even better framing. Like, I understand and I get that her kind of musical reality is fucked up in a way. But I almost feel like, I guess just out of a person, preference that I would have preferred the musical scenes to more accurately kind of emulate the type of musicals that perhaps she would have consumed from America that she was talking so fondly of that,

you know, why aren't those her reality in her head that she's trying to escape to? Because it just seems like a bit of a contradiction between like what she says she consumes versus what we see her imagine, I guess. Well, yeah, like you said, it's supposed to be a fucked up musical sequence, because it also wouldn't fit the music at all, because this music is this weird abstract. Well, you'd have to change the music, too. You'd have to have not York store. But I love the weird abstract music, and I love that, I don't know if you knew this, Adam,

you probably do. They set up like a hundred cameras around the set and then just acted out the entire dance sequence. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's why it looks so weird. That's why it was so odd, because it's just like whatever they had in the frame, they're like, okay, cut to that angle. And that's why it looks like a cluster fuck, which is what it is. But that gave it a really interesting aesthetic. And that's when I really got on board with the movie. I think without that, it's losing something. Okay. I agree with Adam's point to a

degree. I think even with the way that they were editing and creating the movie at the time, there might have been some things that they could have done to just kind of make these two worlds seem a little separate. You know, I kind of like the chaos of the editing and the way that they were sort of pulling these scenes together. And like I said, with the court scene, there clearly were some visual differences between these two worlds, but given the camera quality

and the way that they were putting the movie together technically at the time, I'm sure there was only so little they can do to kind of make these two different kinds of pieces of movie scenery shot in the same place with the same actors look vastly different. You know what I mean?

Because it seemed like, it seemed like on the whole, as they transitioned from just a die scene to a musical scene. They pretty much kept all of the wardrobe the same, the lighting the same, all the props and the setup of the area that they were performing in the same. It looked like they really didn't change much outside of like they might alter the color a little bit or in the case of the train musical shot.

Everything looked like a little softer or like more pillowy. So there were some subtle changes, but I think maybe a harder contrast would have been more interesting. Yeah. I guess let's talk a bit about the music as well. I do have a few more things to say about the presentation, but we'll leave that to the end, I guess. Yeah, sure. I enjoyed the music. I've only listened to a few tracks from Bjork outside of this and obviously the Death Grip's Collabo. And as much as I enjoyed it, I kind of feel the same way with my personal preference, I guess just regarding the contrast and trying to get into the character's head

of what she would have consumed and it just seems like I love Bjork's performance in this movie but I'm not sure I love the tone of what she's singing for certain scenes so I feel like

I... Examples. I feel like particularly the scene after she shoots the guy, I forget his name now the police guy. Yeah, he has a... I can look up the names if you want.

Yeah, he has an actor's name that... He's a name actor. Sometimes I watch a scene like that in the movie, and I feel like it's almost a bit of a missed opportunity to have an incredibly emotional kind of song attached to it. It doesn't necessarily have to be like stereotypical or cliched, but something with a bit more feeling to it, whereas the music that she's written,

the feeling that I get from it is it's mystical. Like that's the kind of emotion that I get from her music a lot of the time is like mysticism. It's like, ooh, this weird, strange kind of music that seems like it would be more appropriately fitting for, you know, some sort of fantasy movie in a sense. Yeah, it's very otherworldly and it's very alien. Yeah, yeah. And I feel like her music didn't match the tone of the scene in several instances. There are some songs that I really liked, but I do feel like her kind of mystical tone doesn't necessarily lend itself the best to every scene in the film. Yeah, I mean, I've heard every Bjork record, and I love a vast majority of her discography.

And one thing that I did look up going into the film is just the year that it came out. So going into it, knowing that this movie was being filmed and released around. the time that Bjork was putting out some of her most popular material and the material like homogenic and Vesperene that basically almost create her trademark sound because prior to that some of her influences were coming from other genres and she was very much wearing them on her sleeves but on those two records she really came up with a sound that was uniquely her like that was her sound so I kind of went into it expecting like okay she's artistically and pretty much commercially at the peak of her career

around the time that this album was being made and being released. So it's almost kind of like, you know, you're making the movie knowing with her involvement that she's going to be a pretty big pull to it. People are going to be watching it or checking it out because she's involved. And those audience members, those viewers are probably going to want to hear her making the kind of music or singing on the type of instrumental

that they're used to hearing her on. So I kind of went into it expecting that sound. but I agree with what you're saying. Like, given how much she loves musicals and how musicals are a thing, you would think that the music she imagines sounds nothing like anything she would have watched. But maybe that also in a way is,

I don't know, one of the few ways that you could say, well, maybe in a way they do effectively make this world that she's living in as far as like when they transition into a musical section, this is what makes that world sound surreal and odd and separate from the rest of the world that she's actually existing in because this music that she's singing, this music that she's

dancing to sounds nothing like anything of the world that she's existing in. Yeah, I like that a lot. Because there's a, I think it's kind of cliche to transition to a musical sequence, like, in the middle of a movie. And it's all like, oh, this is how I wish the world really was and all magical. And I see Lars von Trrier just going like, I'm going to make it as fucked up. and like weird as I possibly can. Well, who knows what kind of direction he gave her

or how much creative freedom she had. I'm guessing. Well, they hated each other, right? Well, you know, given the tone of the music in the film and given what I know of her discography around that point, like it almost sounds exactly like what she would normally be doing. So I can't imagine that she didn't have... So wrote some X-a-song.

Yeah, I can't imagine that she didn't have a vast amount, if not total creative control over a lot of these tracks. You know, I loved a lot of the instrumentals. If you're going to get the or... One of the most refreshing of all of them to me was during the musical scene at the factory that she worked at because all of the kind of banging, clanging, metal percussion throughout that moment had kind of like an industrial tone to it that I thought was really cool, which in a lot of ways is...

That was my favorite musical. It is very much in the spirit of the musical she talks about or she's inspired by in the films because back in the day, a lot of those musicals, Sometimes you would hear pieces of instrumentation that were inspired by the setting in which the song was being performed, you know, which, again, in a way, does kind of call back to, call back to that genre. Alex, what do you think of the music? I really liked it. It didn't really bother me in the same way, did you guys, with the kind of contradiction. I mean, I still love it almost.

Yeah, honestly, it never really crossed my mind. There were other things that were bugging me more than, more than that in terms of, like, I mentioned the, you know. I preferred the first half over the second half. Why is that? This is probably just like a subjective thing, but it gets so fucking relentlessly miserable towards the... Are we talking... You're talking about like around the point

where she gets like robbed after that, it kind of drops off for you? Or is it like after she admits that she's going blind? Is it too depressing for you? What it was... It's weird because I love depressing shit, but there's something about this one. where the moment she, she's like writhing around with the fucking gun trying to shoot the guy.

Where I was just like, I was loving the way it was progressing slowly and you could see what was going to happen. You could see just through the acting and the way the story was progressing where it was going. And the kind of drop of the hat way, the action just sped up and it all spiraled so quickly from there. It just started to lose me a little bit. It just went so ridiculously dark and depressing and fucking... It's not a short movie either. It's what, two hours, 20 minutes? I was riveted the whole time,

despite the fact that the editing I didn't enjoy in the first half. Yeah, I found... Shaving 20 minutes off might have solved that problem for me because it was just like how much more depressing. I didn't feel the length at all. I don't feel the link at all. Yeah, so that was my main issue with that, you know. Mm-hmm.

I mean, I get it. But that's when I got the movie is when she murdered that guy. I'm like, oh, this is what he's doing. Like, that's when I got it. And then my favorite scene in the movie is when she's about to get fucking hung, and there's a musical number on the way to her death. Like, that was brilliant. Yeah.

And, like, all the inmates are, like, hugging her, and she's, like, sleeping in the bed with them. It's so fucked up, but it's brilliant. My favorite moment is when, Catherine Dinev hands her her son's glasses. I love that part. Yeah. Where it's just like, you did it, but you're going to die.

I love that like kind of like bittersweet, like accomplishment, but accepting my death. Yeah, she was basically like emotion that's in the film. I think it's just, I love it so much. It's, it makes me cry. I don't think it's relentlessly like miserable, like Alex said. Because I think most of his movies are. It's very fucking miserable. No, most of his movies are, but these musical sequences like,

they change it up a bit. They're like these breaks. And they're still, like I said, they're disasters that you're watching. But there's something, something entertaining and bittersweet about it. Like, oh, she's finally getting some relief in this world, which added some levity to it. This is just kind of my personal belief system shining through here. But what I got out of it is, yes, at the end of it, like there were a lot of bad things happening to her. And kind of what made me reflect on this is just some of the online reaction.

and reviews that I was reading of the movie after I watched it because it seemed like what a lot of people took away from. This is such a sad movie. I can't believe how sad this is. Fuck you, Von Schreier. Why would you make such a sad movie with so many awful things happening to this person? I mean, I got that about the film, and it did cut me emotionally at some points, but really kind of what I took away from the film was just not so much, oh, you know, what was her? There's so many bad things happening to her, but more just the nobility of the, the fact that she had a goal, she had something that she wanted to accomplish, she was sacrificing

herself for her kid, and there wasn't anything that was going to get in the way of her accomplishing that. You know, there was nothing that was going to prevent her from getting that done. Really, that's what I kind of got out of the movie, despite everything getting in her way. It wasn't that bad things were happening to her. It's that she decided this is what she was going to do. She was going to do everything that she could to make a better life for her son, no matter what got in her way. Even if at the very last second an opportunity to save herself was

presented, she wasn't going to take it if it meant not being able to get her son the surgery. Yeah, it wasn't relentless misery. It was like a story of sacrifice, which is very, that's a common theme in a lot of musicals. It's very lame-miss, the story with a lot of similarities with that. I think the main thing about that for me is I really like the tragedy aspect. You know, but for me it's like I, you barely know the kid and something to me is like I would have like

You know, they probably cut all that out The Von Freer has never directed a child well ever Whenever there's children in his movies, he fucks it up And this is the least he does. We don't know much about her kid But you know of her affection for him And you know her you know about her drive That's so made it work He likes riding a bicycle

Yeah The kid is not a character. It's instantly ineffective because, you know, the one thing that to me kind of makes it all fall through is that, man, if only we lived in a world with like, you know, universal health care or something or, you know, or if there was like, you know, maybe she had a bunch of personal friends that were like, hey, you know, listen, we'll all find a place to live together and we'll, you know, we'll all work together and we'll all trying to raise the money for your son. Or like you said, you know, what if it was like 2018 and they just hop on, you know, all of a sudden she's just like at the jail talking to her on the phone like, Listen, I found this site. Look at this. It's on my phone. It's called GoFund Me.

I just started to GoFund Me for your son. We raised $10,000. She should have just immigrated to Canada instead. Yes, exactly. She should have went to Canada and not America. Poor thing. I mean, it's another theme of the movie, too, is like that deconstruction of the American dream. Because she comes to America to, it's very similar to Wild at Heart, where they come to America

because it's this amazing place where my dreams are going to come true. And then she's just consistently. gets fucked by everyone and everything around her. And again, it's that musical theme where musicals are very American and, you know, oh, fantasy, look how great it is, love and dreams and whatever. I thought the movie was brilliant. I'm glad you all seem to enjoy it. Yeah.

For the most part. Alex, do you enjoyed it for the most part? I think I'm coming across more negative than I am. These are kind of nitpicks more than anything. Like I agree with what most of you guys are. I think it's really excellent You don't hate the ending, right? You just think it's not as strong.

I just, I still really like the second after movie. I just kind of prefer the first half a little bit. I don't know. It might change upon subsequent viewings, but that's just the feeling. Did you cry like a little bitch? Did you cry like a little bitch?

In the second half? Fucking cry. Are you fucking sorry? Fun fact. Both of those films, Wild at Heart and Dancer in the Dark won the POM. or can.

Bjork won best actress. And the film was also nominated for an Oscar for the original song I've seen it all. So that was the train track one. Yeah. It lost to Pixar that year. Of course. And Pixar in the year 2000. For a bug's life or whatever they made then.

I don't know. This was also the only film that. Bjork ever acted in because she couldn't handle it she wrote a Facebook post during all the Harvey Weinstein Me Too stuff coming out talking about

a Danish film director who directed a movie she was in that emotionally abused her throughout the production of the film and it doesn't name him but she's been in one film so it's kind of It's kind of obvious who she's talking about.

I also kind of want to touch on, we talked a bit about the presentation. Is anybody here familiar with something called Dogma 95? Yes. Yeah, I kind of looked into it after the movie was, after the movie was over. And obviously, the movie didn't adhere to all of the rules of that. It didn't try to. But it was stupid. It's stupid.

No, I mean, obviously. But it's still an interesting little manifesto. I think it's the stupidest shit. Oh, yeah. I want to explain it to the audience before we start talking about it. Yeah, explain it and then we'll fucking deconstruct it. They didn't adhere to all of it, but from what I understand, there are other films he's made that do... None of them have.

So basically... No, none of them have. Dogman 95 is essentially just a classification kind of thing, a set of goals and rules that were invented by Lars von Treyer and Thomas Winterberg in 1995. and it was kind of like a film movement in a sense where they were sick and tired and fed up of all these huge budget films that were essentially using fancy editing and and expensive tricks as a way to kind of supersede the core of what film should be so like the actor's performances and the characters they felt like a lot of that was being missed or washed over in a lot of films in 1995.

And that's also true today anyway. But essentially they set up these rules where a film could be classified as a Dogma 95 film if they adhere to these rules. Number one, the shooting must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in. If a prop is necessary to the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found. Rule two, the sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. The audio has to come from the scenes that they're actually filming.

They can't be from separate places. Number three, the camera must be handheld. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted. Number four, the film must be in color. Special lighting is not acceptable. Number five, optical work and filters are forbidden. Number six, the film must not contain superficial action like murders, weapons, etc. Yep, missed that too.

Number seven, temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden. So the film has to take place here and now, essentially. Number eight, genre movies are not acceptable. Then follow that. Number nine, the film format must be Academy 35mm, and number 10, the director must not be credited. And so they premiered this kind of, idea with a film from each of them, one by Thomas Winterberg and one by Lars von Treyer, and they premiered these at Cannes. Lars von Trier's film was not the better one.

It was called The Idiots. I just watched it last night, actually. It was very fucked up and strange and ridiculous, but wasn't amazing in my opinion, whereas Thomas Winterberg's film highly, highly recommended it's called Feston or The Celebration. Amazing movie shot and Dogma 95 style. And although, yes, the entire concept is kind of stupid, namely because those two films that they premiered didn't actually follow all the rules anyway. And they had to issue confessions is what they called them. They're like, yeah, this is a part of it.

So if you make a Dogma 95 film, you also have to make a confession talking about how you didn't follow every single rule. So like... Talking about the rules that you broke. Yeah, exactly. And they made it. Like literally the two promulmonary. mere films had broken several of the rules that they had laid out.

However, the rules that they made. I mean, oh yeah, it's hilarious. However, I do see value in this from, I guess, like, a film study perspective, because what it winds up doing is it creates these limitations on a director and a writer as they're creating the project. And so it forces them to avoid specific tropes or tricks that they would otherwise. otherwise feel comfortable doing. And when you think about the film you're making, well, very, very briefly, yeah, I mean, yeah, it's

stupid. However, the film was still constructed with the intent and goals in mind of focusing on the characters and the performances without any kind of special tricks or help. And I just kind of, I find that very interesting. And also Harmony Corrine made one too. I thought that little playbook that they pulled together there was actually kind of cool and pretty admirable, even if they didn't stick to all of it all the time, because it kind of remind me of a lot of albums that I love across numerous genres, rock, jazz, pop, so on and so

forth, where you might have a group or you might have a musician that might decide going into the record, hey, on this record, we are only using acoustic instrumentation. On this record, every song is going to be recorded low five. On this record, every, yeah, exactly. Every single record or every single song on the record needs to be recorded in a different location, you know, which is something that a band that I like by the name of Liars did on an album. They sort of got this mobile recording setup and they sort of went into a different space with every single song they recorded onto the album. You know, it's a lot of different records to me feel this way and or have done similar things. But, you know, there have been some

instances I can think of where, hey, you know, maybe a piece of instrumentation that originally wasn't supposed to be on the record. Maybe they overdub it after or something. You know what I mean, so even some artists like that kind of break. Yeah, they cheated a little bit, but still the spirit of the original idea is kind of there. And even if you don't accomplish every single rule you've kind of set out for yourself, the end product still has an entirely unique aesthetic. Yes. Because of what you kind of embarked on doing.

Because the thing is with a film especially, like there's so much that can go on between the moment where you're writing it, the moment when you're shooting it, and the moment when you have to edit it. There's so many limitations you can place. Exactly. Whereas with music, a lot of those things can be happening simultaneously. You know, you could be in the studio writing as you're performing or kind of improvising or laying things to tape that you didn't expect to and be editing within a matter of moments afterwards.

You know, whereas with music you have these, I mean, with movies, you have these three separate processes that even though you might go into a film with these like dogmatic rules and sort of idealistic notions. sort of going into it, you know, you're probably going to have to make some sacrifices by the time the film is nearing its end in order to kind of come through with a logical well-made product that you're happy with.

Because at the end of the day, while those rules are cool, and I admire anybody trying to embark on such things, you might have to make some concessions toward the end to make sure that the film itself is good or lives up to what you feel is like the standard for a quality movie. Damn, Anthony. You put it really well.

Yeah. I got to say, you've almost sold, me on it. I don't understand why you need to write in a contract, but you know what? That's a, that's a good way of it. It's not a contract. It's a manifesto. Yeah, I know. It's not a contract, but it's like, it's like a showy promotional tool. Yeah. You know, it's just like, look how, that's how I see it too. Look at us. We're like, we're like really breaking off from everybody else. We're so edgy. We're the cool kids table. Here's all these rules we're going to put on ourselves. The more limited you are, the more creative you're forced to be, though, aren't they?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. But it's like what you said at the end of the day, what's important is the story. And if you need to break some of those stupid-ass rules to tell a good story, then do it. And luckily, he did. Just imagine how many instances where a writer in Hollywood or otherwise is thinking, okay, well, I'm going to have this scene where someone's going to get shot and they're going to die. And that's like the focus of where they're starting off is like, this is the emotional pull that the film is going to have is this gunshot. And then to remove that from the equation and have them thinking about like, wait a minute, like what what could this movie even be if I removed that? Is the movie worth, is the story worth telling outside of that?

Are my characters fleshed out? Are they interesting? You know, like what is happening in the presentation of the film beyond that? I think that that's kind of an important mindset to at least get yourself considering even if it's not like a manifesto that you're going to be adhering to. It puts you in a different mindset creatively. Yeah, yeah. It's important to, to, No. Sorry? For his later stuff. Has he followed this manifesto since?

No. He made one. Winterberg made one. Harmony Corrine made one. They actually disbanded the Dogma 95 as a classification in 2005. And the reason why is because they felt as though technology had improved so much that even if you are adhering to those rules at that point, the aesthetic is just so wildly changed with the improvement of digital.

digital cameras and audio and etc etc it's films just wound up looking like they're professional anyway even if they were adhering to those rules and so they they basically just said like yeah uh dogma 95 films still exist and you can make them but there's no nobody classifying them and there's no little sticker thing you put at the beginning of the movie to show that it's official. Like, they didn't want to be seen as necessarily a brand. They just kind of wanted to promote a different way of thinking about films or a different way of creative thinking when it comes to movies. An artistic movement. You could tell there's still some elements of that movement aesthetically, though, that Popperman in his movies a little bit. Yes. Like in some of his latest films,

which, you know, is funny because, you know, you could tell some of the rules, quote, unquote, that he had for the movie. Like, the only reason he threw them in there is just, I, I, prefer this aesthetically. So I'm just going to make it a rule, even though it's just what I would probably be doing, even if I didn't put these rules on myself, because it's just what I like visually in filmmaking. Oh, and by the way, if anybody's second guessing checking out that movie I recommended Feston, the celebration, I should mention it's from the same director as The Hunt, which is something that people thank me for recommending often.

Oh, yeah. That's a great friend. Everybody loves The Hunt. I haven't met a single person that's watched it and didn't absolutely love it. So, yeah, check out the celebration, Feston. So I guess we'll just give a quick little wrap-up of our thoughts on Dancer in the Dark before going into questions, if that's fine. Sure. Sure. Cool.

Well, obviously, I love the movie, despite having some personal preferences of where I felt there were some missed opportunities, I guess, but still at the same time, I also feel like I would. wouldn't have it any other way because it could have, you know, perhaps my suggestions would just turn it into something worse anyway. Love the movie. I give it a nine at a ten for sure. What do you guys think? I like the film overall. I mean, I was pleased with the vast majority of it. I thought the characters were really compelling. I thought the story was pretty compelling. I thought the musical numbers were pretty fantastic and unique. You know, loved the music and already went into the movie being a fan of Bjork. And it's, you know, kind of made me appreciate her in a different light. You know, at first I was, again, thinking the movie was like a little rocky with the way the film was edited. And even how some of the actors were acting, I feel almost as if like the acting kind of got a little better as the film was going on a little too. Like everything seemed like a little less awkward because if I recall correctly, like some

of the interaction she was having with her son toward the beginning of the film just like felt really stiff and weird. And I've always kind of known Bjork to be kind of like a very cold and very alien, like weird type of person when you see her in interviews or interacting with other people, at least kind of in the public forum. So like that was kind of manifesting itself in the film in like a really bad way. But as the movie went on, I kind of felt like she, you know, warmed up a little bit. And in a way, I felt like it kind of added a lot to her character. It was almost like her blindness or the way that she kind of sort of would transition or fall into like these weird musical passages. Kind of made her almost just like a visitor or a tourist in the world that she was actually living in.

So she had kind of like just like a weird demeanor about her, I guess. Yeah, I just thought all the characters were really compelling. I loved the ending of the film, which was incredibly intense and dark. Yeah, I mean, there were just so many elements of the film that I found to be really good. I mean, it's not going to be for everybody. It's not a very accessible movie. It's a very heavy and a very unorthodox and a very difficult film. But, you know, if you're into stuff that's off the beaten path,

then you want to see something with like a lot of heartbreak and, you know, kind of, again, like a really strong sense of nobility to it. It's worth a shot. For sure. Alex. I don't know how I'm supposed to follow Fantano's fucking perfect summary of the movie right there. But yeah, great performances from Bjork. The music's amazing.

her voice. I just love her voice. It's amazing. Nice. Yeah, it's a very quaint and tragic movie. Very sympathetic character. I'd say it's quaint. You know, it's... Oh, you are British. A singular person's story. Yeah, it's, uh, the style of it is something unique. What are you fucking laughing at? Well, this always happens.

I'm so sorry. Being English is... I like the word quaint. I use it quite often. Yeah? Yeah, from talking about like a Bell and Sebastian album or something. Oh, this Bell and Sebastian album is quite quaint. It's quite quaint. Anthony's got your back.

It's not a movie for everyone. Someone has your back. It is quite, it's very sad. But, you know, it's an important lesson about not giving up and what the human spirit can drive you to do. Death or otherwise. Hold on. We'll wait. Nobody said anything.

My fucking idiot roommate walked in with a goddamn package. Sorry about that. one more thing. I heard someone, I heard, I kind of heard the voice in the background and it sounded like they were saying, someone in the park got shot. I was like, oh America. He said what's up, dude. Oh, okay.

Yeah, I mean, that does happen frequently. Alex, did you finish your thoughts? I'm sorry about that. I've been listening to the soundtrack on repeat since I watched it like a week ago. Oh, nice. Something really magical about it. Awesome. It just said, it made me feel something.

I haven't felt in a movie for, because I just, Adam surprising me by making sure I didn't research it in any way, was like such a great moment for me. And that's something like, I really hope other people out there took the advice as well, um, before going in and listening to this, because it's the kind, it would be like seeing Empire Strikes Back for the first time and not knowing Dalfade is the father kind of feeling. It would be like watching Blade Runner 2049 and yeah, I was going to say that Harrison Ford is, it before you start the movie. Thanks, Sony.

But I would recommend if anything we've said is remotely interesting to you. Good. Ralph? Well, I loved it. I mean, mostly my issues are with the first half. I hated the editing. I hated the way it was shot. I still get it, why he did it, but he went way too far with it.

Her blindness was also very inconsistent, you know, because sometimes she couldn't see anything. And then like, like, there's that plot. There's like a central plot point scene where she's in her house and the guy is standing right there and he sees her put the money in the thing, the tin, right? Well, she's not necessarily looking directly at him. I don't know. Yeah, but it's like he's right there. Like her vision's fading. We don't know what kind of like distance she has. Like that's the thing is like sometimes she could see clearly.

Sometimes she's like blurry. Sometimes it was like it was inconsistent for me. It's not a big thing. I'm just saying most of my issues with the first half. But, like, I adore it. I didn't enjoy it particularly for most of it, but I was completely riveted. And I love what this movie represents. It's a great statement.

And I was fucking depressed after I saw it. The rest of the day, I was just upset. Yes, I went to bed early because I was just, like, really upset. So, yeah, like a four out of five or something. I'm glad I made you upset, Ralph. Yeah, you always make me upset, Adam. I know. I'm just like, let's recommend a movie that's, like, happy.

Does everybody have a favorite song? Oh, again, for me, it was the song in her workplace. I loved the, again, I kind of loved the heavy industrial, you know, instrumentation on that. It was really interesting, which I wonder how much of that, you know, kind of fed into the, you know, the Dogman 95 sort of ideal. Like, okay, you know, we need to try to incorporate some of the sounds of this area into the scene. And clearly the vocals were clearly recorded in the studio. They were clearly not recorded on site. Oh, yeah.

It's not a film that tries to be Dogma 95. Yeah. So, you know, I wonder, obviously he had like a little bit of that ideal in there trying to incorporate some of the sounds from the set into that song. But yeah, that was probably my favorite track out of all of them. I didn't enjoy any of the music. All right. No.

I think it fits the movie perfectly, and I wouldn't have it any of it. other way, but I would never listen to it on an iPod. Again, this is not the kind of music I enjoy. Mm-hmm. You know, but my favorite sequence was again. A nickelback fan. Yeah, nickelback, Taylor Swift. You know, I love that shit, dude.

Puddle of Mud. Corey Feldman. Three doors down. Three doors down. Third-eye blind. Logan Paul. Three doors down. Third eye blind.

You know them all. Three-11. Any band with a three in it, really. Just any band with three in their name? Three-sixam mafia? you're just like really big into 303. Yep, 303.

Yeah, any group with a three in their name you just fucking love their shit, dude. Hell yeah. It's a really weird music listening habit you have. All right. So now we're going into the question part of the podcast

where you guys send us questions. There is a dedicated sub-reddit thread where you can ask questions and there's a dedicated thread every episode or whatever for the next one. who gathered some questions for us to answer?

I did. Did you, Alex? No, I didn't. I'm not Alex. I looked at a couple. I said, Alex, you fuck. I thought of my own one, which I don't know if that's against the rules or not. That's not against the rules.

I mean, if you want to ask, go ahead. You can go first. Do one of yours first, and then I'll follow with my special secret question. So I have some music-related ones, and I have some movie-related ones. So you want to start with a music one? Because we got the Dankthony Danktano over here, who's a big music guy. Let's do it. So this one's by XD Padfoot.

Just wondering if any of you guys have played any musical instruments during your life. Oh, I mostly play bass, just bass guitar, four string. Fender Jazz bass, Fender Precision Base. I play a little keyboard and guitar too, but I just, I mostly enjoy playing the bass. I mostly excel at the bass. I mostly practice my bass. Did you teach yourself or did you get like any, I don't know, training from a professional? I took lessons as a teenager for probably like five to six years, like probably from 13 all the way up until when I started going to college.

And then after that, I just started teaching myself. And around that time, it was actually easier to teach yourself because anything that I wanted to know, honestly, I would just go on YouTube and look it up. Yeah, that's a big thing now. There were just like tons of awesome just like bass lesson videos on YouTube. I mean, there are more and more every year. And some of my favorite channels, shout out to Scott's bass lessons. Dude has fucking awesome bass lessons. Hey, boy.

And has access to a lot of, like, cool bassists who he has on throughout the series who just have cool tips and tricks and stuff. So, yeah, like, around YouTube and when I was getting more internet savvy and stuff, I would just, like, look up bass stuff that I wanted to learn online and just do it that way. Do you write any material? I used to, like, record little bass riffs and stuff when I was younger and everything. And I've, like, done some lo-fi and home recording stuff, too. I mean, obviously, I know a little bit about it because of the,

stuff I've recorded for the Cal songs and that sort of thing. And I used to be in a like a music duo and I did some demo stuff of our stuff. But I haven't like done any super like, you know, grand multi-track type recording, you know, with like multiple musicians that that I've sort of written myself or anything like that. I know. I'm no Adam from YMS, you know what I know. Hey. Hey.

Speaking of. But hey, if you need a sweet, if you need a sweet-ass baseline for a song or something of that. if I need a sweet-ass baseline but I already play the bass oh are you as good as Anthony I'll fucking

I'll fucking I'll fucking put you down in a bass battle any day bitch oh shit I'm so I'm so I already play the bass I could fucking rule you at the base I could fucking rule you at the base dude

okay wow my songs are I'm too picky like everything has to be a certain way so it's like if I have other people playing instruments on my album, I'm more or less just telling them what to play. I take direction.

I always take input from other people that want to give me input, but very rarely am I actually happy with the input over what I've already got. All I'm saying is I'm happy to take direction. And anything that I play bass on, you could totally just put featuring Anthony Fantano on it, and all of a sudden it's probably going to get 100,000 YouTube hits. But then you won't be able to, review the album without it being a major conflict of interest if it wasn't already a conflict of interest

yeah but you still review your friend's albums though like what like who's who's my best friend who's album I didn't say best friend but you got like George Miller you did uh like his pink guy stuff I don't know I did I did talk about his shit that is true you got me in trouble you fucking you made an entire video talking about the ethics of recording or reviewing friends albums it's true it's true it's true yeah called you I just I just feel I just feel like I just feel like I just feel I'm closer with you, that's all. I just have a bigger crush. I just have a bigger crush on you.

Oh, well, that might be a little bit of a conflict of interest. Yeah, I play, uh, I play a bunch of instruments. This guy over here. I could play everything. Yeah. Well, I mean, so I started on piano at a very, very young age. Like, I don't even know how young I was. And I would consider piano to be one of the best instruments you can learn first.

It's true. It is one of the best instruments. The visual layout for what music is, it's literally just a low to high, and each note ascending is just another semi-tone, right? So if you get comfortable and familiar with notes on a piano, then you have a very easy to understand visual representation of what music is, in a sense. And in learning to play piano, you learn everything all at once. You learn chords. you learn melody, you learn bass, you learn counterpoint. You pretty much get all of it all at once. Yeah, it's like everything in one instrument that you could possibly learn somewhere else.

Whereas, you know, you learn something like drums, you're only learning rhythm, really. You know, you learn bass guitar, you're only learning the bass when there's much more to a full song or music in general than just those qualities. And so I started out on piano, you know, vocals, if you consider that an instrument, I guess. Then I learned, I don't remember what I started learning first, acoustic guitar or drums. I took some beginner lessons in high school for acoustic guitar, and it was pretty, like, I didn't have any issue with it. I taught myself the drums, taught myself bass, taught myself the cello recently, actually. And that's, I wound up buying a cello just for the new album I'm recording, and it's turning out really well. there's a lot of tracks with the cello on it that I didn't expect to have the cello added.

And it's just, it's a really complimentary instrument for what I'm going for. So that's turning out well. Holy fucking shit. What? What? My wife just talked to me apparently just now, like, as in 20 minutes ago, there was a shooting at YouTube headquarters. What? Oh, yeah.

Seriously? Yes. So my roommate wasn't joking. The shooter's dead. What the fuck? Four people were, shooters dead. Four people were wounded. YouTube headquarters in fucking California.

Yeah. Holy shit. Oh my god. Left turn. Sorry, but that was like, no. That was crazy and honestly just like, well, I mean, it's, it concerns all of us in a way. Oh, of course. As crazy and unfortunate as that is, I, I'm not a big fan of commenting on things where there's not,

much information out yet, you know. No, it's true. I don't really want to start a discussion on this and become one of those commentary people that just jump on it as soon as it's... All I can say is just right now, I hope that this person isn't actually a YouTuber. And, like, of course, like, they have some kind of crazy extremist YouTube channel because I feel like, honestly, like, that's the last thing YouTube needs in the news right now. Yeah. Another crazy extremist political YouTuber who actually shot up YouTube. Yeah, that is really fucked up

And we can only speculate Which is what I don't want to do right now Sorry No worries So I also play the I played a cello And I played a violin And I play the trumpet

I've always been curious about violin And cello like in regards to Just the difficulty level of which Because you before that you played bass And piano and guitar and so on and so forth What would you rate to be the difficulty level. Like, I personally can play fretless bass pretty well.

Like, is playing the cello much more difficult than on those instruments? Like, is it super... If I just, like, picked up a violin and was like, hell yeah, fucking violin, like, could I pick up on it pretty easy? Considering how long I'm playing, like, stringed instruments? It's... Well, I mean, when you start to incorporate instruments like cello or violin, there's, like, vibrato that is a whole new level of challenge.

Yeah, sort of just, like, plug. whether or not you want to incorporate. Well, I mean like, and the vibrato is not even caused by the movement of your string. It's caused by you're essentially just like wiggling your finger back and forth as you're hitting the note, which is a challenge in of itself. You're kind of like pivoting the finger in a sense, and it takes a while to get used to. And I'm not even sure I do it like all that well, but. Is it like pulling a string on a guitar to kind of get it to, you know, a little bit or is it like different?

No, that's very different. Yeah, you don't want to like bend the the string on a violin or cello. You want all of the... You're just kind of like wiggling your finger on top. Yeah, you're like pressing up and down in a sense, but not ever having a point where your finger isn't connected to it. It's a challenge for sure. I do feel like the cello is easier than the violin.

You have a lot more space for vibrato and notation. whereas violin, very subtle movements can easily just fuck it up and make it sound awful. I'm not like an expert at both of them, but I play them well enough that they're on my album and I'm happy with how they sound. Do you play any stuff you blow into, man? Yeah, I learned the clarinet for the album also. I play some trumpet on the album. I learned the saxophone for one track.

That was an instrument that I was expecting to have on a lot more tracks, but it only really worked out for one. So like the opposite of the cello. I had a dream last night I could play sax for some reason. I think I dreamed about being able to play sacks. I would like to. I had a dream last night that I fucked a female and it was so weird. I had sex with a girl. That's a little off topic. I wore a condom in my dream too. I hope tonight I dream that I that I fuck a sax. I hope tonight that I dream that I just I fuck a saxophone. You dreamed you wore protection? No, I pulled the condom out of my wallet where I always keep them. So I was like even, I was practicing in safe sex even in my dream. That's cute. Kind of in the wall,

it's a rookie move though. Oh my God. Whatever. I was like super strong too. I like lifted her up against the wall. It's super human strength. Yeah. Um, anyway, Alex, do you play any instruments? Well, I guess now is the real time, Ralph. Besides the skin, Do you want to reveal the secret Ralph? I guess. Me and Ralph had started a band that's called the Bongo Boys. Yeah, lots of bongo tracks on there. Yeah, we both play the bongos.

It's coming out soon. Well, you do vocals, remember? Well, I do a little bit of bongo work in it. Like the sixth track or so we switch places a bit. And it's kind of like 50-50 split. And it's more singing or rapping or slam poetry on top of the bongos. We kind of do a bit of everything. Every song's different.

It took a lot. Inspiration from Corey Feldman. We've nearly finished our first album, and it's all about a big battle with YMS's first album. It's going to be kind of one of those rap battles. Which one's sales are better? Like who has the better sales?

It's kind of like disc track thing. Hopefully he'll do a response. Well, let's see if it does nearly as well as my demo CD from 2010. Let's hope so. You're going to get a blindie cover? Listen, I don't know Do you have a song called Modesty Adam? No, I don't want one.

I'm going to positively review your album and shit all over Adam's album And oh, perfect. Ooh, I like that. And then I'll just like basically cast Adam off into the Cory Feldman realm. Oh, please. And you guys will be the next Kendrick Lamar.

Yeah, that's my dream to be the next Kendrick Lamar. Thank you so much. I played drums for like a year. Yeah? Yeah. But then stopped because, I can't remember why. I just didn't have any way to put a nice drum kit and like you know

Oh so what did you do with it that shit's heavy and expensive? What do you do with it? You play it rough. It's a drum kit, you know? No, I know but you only played it for a year. What'd you do with it after? It just sat in the corner? No like I did lessons for a year and I had like my parents didn't have the most amount of money so they got me one of those little rubber pads you know They're mimic like it just go did it's just not the same. They got you a guitar hero drum set He was practicing his parodils Yeah, exactly right And I just, I just couldn't do it

You rough? Perfect I played a I play acoustic guitar and bass also I studied that from when I was like 10 To like 15 I mean I don't really play that much It's mainly a thing I pull out when

When girls come over or stuff like that It's never worked I forgot about one other instrument that I play Mm-hmm Yeah, I mentioned that while you were talking. I'm like, did you? All right, good for you, dude. I'm glad you.

I guess I should also mention that I don't know if I've actually talked about my music at all on this podcast. I should mention that I'm not joking. I've been really curious about how many instruments I play and that I'm recording an album. Like, I'm serious about music for anybody that doesn't know that. And basically I'm recording my first full feature album right now, and it's taken me, like two years so far, but it'll be out early next year. Very happy with how it's going. The only other material I have out right now is kind of just like demo material from like 2010.

So don't consider my currently available material to be a reflection of my current abilities. Yeah, you always get better. That Nicholas Mining Reffin song you made. That's a, that's a, that's a work you've done. I just took an instrumental track from YouTube and then sang over it. Oh, really? Everybody was mad at me for the kick being panned hard left. That was not my fault.

Oh, fucking sham. What a hack! We trusted you. I guess I should also mention that Blondie cover that was also not a joke. Blondie covered one of my songs. So throwing that in there because that seems to help legitimize my music and a lot of people's eyes. And in my opinion, it was one of the better songs on the record. Why, thank you.

It was very cool that they did that. All right. Next question. Sure. So this one's from The Real Meme Daddy. They ask, hey, Mellon. That's your nickname, Mellon. Yeah, that's the mother of my mom gave me.

Go on. Do you like that nickname? I love it. I love it. I'm actually about to sell a shirt that feeds into the melon meme. Good. Oh, really? Good for you, dude.

Mine is, my nickname's Gay Furry, apparently. I'm not a big fan of it, but what are you going to do? Hey, Mellon. I know you hate straight out of Compton. What's your favorite biopic about musicians? In the movie? I don't even know what. Yeah, the movie, the movie, I'm sorry.

What's your favorite biopic about musicians? And I guess this goes for everybody. Hmm. I don't know. It's not a biopic about a specific musician, but it's definitely like a musical movie about a certain point in time in music. And that's a 24-hour party people. I like that film quite a bit.

Okay. I haven't seen it yet. I'm aware of it, though. It's all about the Manchester factory record scene in the U.K. in the 70s and 80s, Joy Division, New Order, happy Mondays, all those bands. Nice. And the guy, Tony, something, whose last name I can't remember, who basically started the label, used to be a TV host.

And then he was starting to hear all of these cool bands in the UK, you know, New Wave and synth pop bands and post-punk bands that weren't quite getting the shine and the attention that they deserved. And he kind of, in a way, sacrificed his media career to, to just totally just live and bleed this music scene and support it and just in a lot of ways kind of put it on. And the whole film is just all about the growth of that scene and just kind of the rise and the fall of the record label.

Yeah, that's on my watch list already. Steve Coogan is in it, directed by Michael Winterbottom, who directed The Trip, which is a very funny movie. Yes. I wish I'd seen it. Sounds interesting. I'll be checking that one out for sure. It's a pretty fun movie, you know,

especially if you're a fan of any other groups that sort of came out of that scene. Again, New Order, Joy Division, that sort of thing. Good. All right. My favorite one, I don't know if you'd count this, but Amadeus about Amadeus Mozart. That's absolutely my favorite biopic about a musician. I haven't seen that. That movie's fucking fantastic.

And it's all told from the point of view of some other composer at the time who was really jealous of Mozart and really wanted to be as good as him, but is not even close to his talented. So it's partly like It's yeah It's partly watching the rise and fall of Mozart And partly watching this poor guy Who wants to be as good as Mozart but never can be So it's a brilliant like movie about art

And like artists and that struggle they go through I loved it So Alex Um Only one I could really think of is Behind the Kanzibra Oh that's such a great one too

Yeah Michael Douglas has a lot of sex with Matt Damon. It's kind of a story. It's one that seems to have gone under the radar. Yeah, it's just about the famous pianist. It's more about the drama behind the scenes. The famous penis?

Penis, yeah, yeah. If you like penis and Matt Damon and Michael Douglasall sharing penis, that's one for you guys. I don't know. I just scanned my Blu-ray shelf for things that would be considered biopics of musicians. does the pianist count? Not really, but sure. I don't know. Is it not?

Kind of? I mean, it's based off of a real person? Isn't it? Oh, so there you go. Yeah. I think it is. Also, I like the Johnny Cash movie quite a bit.

What is that one called? The line is? I walk the line. Yeah. Or does I walk the line. Not to be confused with Walkin'Henix in it. Yeah. I mean, there was some elements of his life that kind of glossed over.

There was a moment where I think they were like what, they were like in downtown Tennessee and there wasn't a black person in sight. But outside of that, like I thought it was like a pretty true to life and pretty compelling as well. I mean, you know, there were probably some scenes that didn't go over exactly how they put it, but I thought it was a pretty fun movie. Oh, good. All right. Next question. Anyone else have anything else to say? No. No.

If Inside Lewin Davis was about a real person, that would probably be mine. Yeah, that's what I feel about. It's not a real person. Okay. Okay, so next one is from Jam Twin 1999. What are some of your favorite music videos or music video directors? This is not one I'm very well versed in. I recently saw that Apple iPod, not I Home by Spike Jones.

Like it's like an advertisement. I know that's not really a music video, but I thought that was pretty fantastic. One of my favorite music videos, this one's a little cliched to have as my answer, whatever. Take On Me by Aha. Yeah, I think that sounds really good. That's one of those music videos that almost just made the song, you know? Yeah. That's a great music video.

Is that the one that's like all like pencil drawn? Yeah. Yeah. That's a fantastic music video right there. There's some interesting stuff like, It's Okay to Cry by Sophie is a very strange music video. Yeah, that movie. That music video is pretty crazy.

Yeah, that one was pretty cool. Eric Weirheim directs a lot of weird stuff. Believe it or not, he directs music video. I know there's probably ones that are just slipping in my memory right now. I'll think about it while somebody else lists them off. I have a couple of you guys are thinking. Go on. Yeah, go ahead.

Some really random ones. Like Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel. It's got like all this weird stop motion stuff and crazy effects, which I'm told by my parents who saw it when I came out were kind of a big deal or something. Like it was all new and crazy technology for a music video. the song only by 9-inch Nails has a cool music video it's all presented through I don't know what they're called they're like a toy where they've got loads of

pins on it and you can like push your hand into it and leaves the print of your hand do you know what I'm talking about yeah those peg those are metal peg things that are in like a rectangular board yeah that's kind of a weird unique one um legend has it for uh run the jewels really like that one what happens on that one is that the one the cop and the guy fighting like perpetually that's a different one I thought legend has it they're like lined up in the police station and they're like they've got loads of duplicates of themselves and they're like taking a step forward doing a line and then yeah yeah yeah there's another one that they had where it's

a cool concept where just this cop and this perp or whatever you would want to call them are just like they're just like they're just like yeah it's just this never-ending battle and you know the the fight is like going into someone's kitchen and they fly through the window and then yeah it's just like this never-ending kind of struggle. And I guess the final one I'd say is Clint Eastwood by guerrillas. It's like, an important one to me.

Oh, yeah, that's a good one. You know, what's funny is like that video is so cutting edge for the time. And aesthetically, it kind of reminded me of like, like, corn's freak on a leash. Like, with some of like the weird effects and like the weird kind of color transitions and stuff. But it's funny because like going back,

it's like, it's just like the advancement of, I think, just visual aesthetics and music videos. It's not quite as like hard hitting as it used to be. When I remember when I was a kid, like those music videos fucking blew my mind. Yeah, same. That in the Nine-ish Nails Closer video, that video used to give me nightmares. I've thought of some more. Okay.

We got Fantasy by, I don't know how to pronounce their band name, Die, D-Y-E. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's an awesome music video. So, fuck up. Oh, it's a classic for sure. It's a really good song as well. It's insane. Oh, my God.

I love that music video so much. much. Yeah, same. There's the music scene by Blockhead, some really cool animation going on in that. There's, uh, Dear God by Monsters of Folk was pretty interesting. Butterfly caught by massive attack had a pretty cool video. Frontier Psychiatrist by the Avalanches is pretty entertaining, although I would say the song's better than the music video, but kangaroo court by capital cities, because it's fur bait, and, uh, Lone Digger by Caravan Palace, because it's fur bait. Those are both really good. Okay.

Furbate, that's an interesting time. I've never heard that before. Oh. Yeah, fur bait. That's what Zootopia was. Oh. Yeah. Do you think they just honed in on the furry market for Zootopia?

I think they really did. You think so? I'm convinced of it. I genuinely don't think they did. Well, we'll get into that discussion another day. Yeah, maybe we should. Because I am convinced that they did. Okay.

We'll talk about it next time. All right. So is that all the time we have for questions? Did you talk about your music video, Ralph? Did you say one? Oh, I don't really have one. I like that home pod one. I more wanted to hear what you guys thought

because, you know, I'm looking for some music videos to watch because I do enjoy them. From when I was a kid, I liked a lot of the old Michael Jackson videos a lot. I don't know, they were less like music videos and more like cultural events, like in the production and the dance routines that went to all of them are so incredible and like so huge. Have you guys seen the music video for battles, My Machines?

No. This experimental rock band called Battles. They have this second album called Glostrop. And Gary Newman, the new wave artist, Gary Newman, who did cars. Oh, the Daniels made this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He sings on the song. And the music video is set on an escalator.

And you see the band playing occasionally. And you see Gary Newman singing. But basically the premise of the whole music video is that this guy who's going up the up escalator, He starts falling on the escalator, but the thing is the escalator keeps going up. So he's in this perpetual motion of falling, just like forever. And so you see the down escalator, like Gary Newman is going the down escalator. He's singing. And then you see the drummer from the band going on the down escalator.

His whole drum set is on the escalator. And he's just like drumming as the escalator is going down. And every member of the band and Gary Newman is performing the song. And they're just kind of passing by the guy who's just falling forever on the up escalator. And it's just like a really odd premise for a music video, but, and I have no idea what making the music video might have meant in terms of just like, like, stunt performance. Because I imagine that there probably would have been like potentially a lot of injuries walking away from such a music video. Because it looks like the guy is legit falling, you know, like on the escalator forever. But it's just like a really weird premise and definitely one of the oddest music videos I've ever seen.

I really love that one music video from that band spiritualized. I think the song is called Hey Jane or something. And it's basically this really long song. So through the music video, they're able to tell like this pretty ambitious and well-developed story where this trans woman, male to female, they have a kid and they're just driving around and, you know, they're like trying to get their kid to school or something. And you could tell that this person to make ends meet is like doing sex work. and this person like meets somebody at a hotel and at some point they pick up their kid like they're around in the area but then they sort of go in this hotel

to sort of do their thing just like get a few bucks or whatever and then it sort of turns violent and they're getting attacked and they're getting beaten and like this person's like about to be killed and then all of a sudden like her kid pops into the background just like guns down the guy like the music video ends with her like breathing heavily on the floor because she was just being choked to death and like just trying to catch her breath and her kid I believe like cuddles up to her.

and just like lays down next her after killing the guy. Wow. It's a pretty crazy and intense music video. I've never seen anything quite like it. And, you know, of course, all of those like, okay go music videos are pretty invented, even if the songs like all suck. Yeah. The songs are like inoffensive and sellable.

Yeah, exactly. If they didn't have their music videos, they would never stand out from the crowd in any sense. Yes. They would not be able to sell their music without their videos. But the music videos, though, they're incredible. Oh, of course. The music videos are the band. You reminded me because the Daniels directed those

That one you were talking about with the escalator They also directed one called Joy Wave by Tongues That music video is excellent It's a bunch of nudists And there's these people with guns that have clothes in them And they're shooting clothes onto these people And then there's of course the turn down for what music video By the Daniels

They're just like their butt hits the floor That music videos are right Yeah they make some great fucking music videos And those are Emerson alum I was just gonna mention how I feel like a crazy person for not having mentioned any death grips music videos. Yes. Oh my God. They are so creative and what I appreciate so much about them is that they're so incredibly effective but they're done so in a way where they understand their own limitations. So back before they actually had a budget,

like now that now a music video like eh can come out where that actually has some production value to it. Like that's a great music video. It's super low budget. It's super like we were saying earlier with the dogma 95 limit. You know, it's almost like they went into some of those music videos with like, okay, you know, these videos need to be limited in this way. It just has to do with like the visual performance of them on the screen and then just like some really weird psychedelic effects. And sort of the concepts they go into every music video too, just like is really refreshing and cool. I love the music video for Double Helix. I love the music video for Hustle Bones.

And I especially love the music video for, you think he loves you for your money, whatever that full title is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That one's an awesome one, where it looks like he's taken the most emotional shit in the world. Yeah. Alex, did you ask your secret question? No, I did not. Do we have time for that secret question, and then we'll call it a podcast? Yeah.

What's the secret question? So here's my secret question, right? We're all relatively opinionated people, right? All of our content revolves around our opinions of things, for the very least. And, you know, sometimes those opinions upset some people. So I want to know, out of all of our videos, what is the video that's kind of upset people the most? And if the negative response to a video has ever gotten to your guys or upset you or whatever, who wants to lead the charge with this one?

Anytime I review a superhero movie, the reaction is incredibly negative for the first, like, month or so. And then after the hype has died down a little, then everybody's like, oh, yeah, of course. like my Amazing Spider-Man 2 video, my Suicide Squad video, like, you can still see the dislike bar. It's not as bad as, you know, the first month of the film's release. But, yeah, that's usually where I get a lot of my negative feedback is whenever I review a popular superhero film. And then immediately, just like forums where people usually say good things about me, they're like, I never thought he was a good reviewer ever. The tone completely shifts. and it's fun.

So it doesn't get to you at all. It never gets to you or anything under your skin. Not really. I mean, I wouldn't be doing this if it did. Yeah, yeah. Ralph? Yeah, well, much like Adam. The Black Panther one, that's probably the most...

Really? Yeah, the most, I guess, controversial, but I don't hate the movie. I think it's just like, whatever. I think it's forgotten. Adam just hates all of them. That's why these movies are made for fucking babies. That's why people just like... I'm just like, yeah, that was okay.

There are people that are desperate to hear somebody say that. They're like, thank you. Yeah. But I don't look at the dislikes. Well, I do, but I don't look at like the comments. I don't give it shit. It's like, yeah, it's my opinion. You don't have to fucking watch it.

Go fuck yourself. That's how I feel. Good. Don't watch me then. Anthony? Yeah, Anthony. Well, as you guys were talking, I did a little bit of research here because I found a site called sort by dislikes.com.

I can see literally what videos I've gotten the most dislikes on. Oh, right. And the two reviews that I have the most dislikes on, and we're talking about like 73% to 27% dislikes, and 71% to 29% dislikes are the Weekend House of Balloons album review and Kanye West, my beautiful Dark Twist Fantasy album review. Although I will say that the Kanye West one is probably the one that I get the most reactions on,

because still to this day, like my score on that record, like, everybody brings it up, and it's just pretty much a meme at this point. What did you give it? Like a six? I gave it like a six. I gave it like a six. Yeah, I was going to say, because I love that album. So, yeah, like, I gave it a six.

And people just like, still to this day are just like, you gave my beautiful Jarctuary of six. You know, I, bra. Kanye. You know, again, again, though, like, people by this point, when they bring it up, it's mostly just a meme. Yeah. But at the time, like, the hatred that people had for that review,

was really intense. And keep in mind that, like, at the time that I came out with that review, my audience was, like, relatively small. Maybe, maybe I had, like, 9,000 subscribers. Like, maybe. Really?

But the thing is, like, that review brought in a whole flood of new viewers. And, like, so all of these people just being introduced to me for the first time ever, and, like, they were just shitting all over me. So at that time, that was probably like, that was probably the most negativity I put up with in a concentrated amount of time for the first time. Now the hate that I get every day probably, you know, all over the internet, probably dwarfs what I got during that review during that point in time. But it felt very huge to me at the time.

And it did shake me. It did get to me in a way, you know, it kind of made me sit there and think like, wow, you know, am I wrong on this one? Do they really fuck up? Did I not? Because, I mean, I've been listening to Kanye's music up until this point. But the record to me just like felt kind of average. Like I felt like it could have been more interesting considering what it was trying to do. And I thought that there were some tracks on there that I just genuinely found kind of grating and annoying.

I guess I just didn't care for what he was trying to attempt on that record. You know, there's some tracks on there that I think are really excellent on their own. Opener's fantastic. Power is amazing. I think it's one of his best tracks. But I just prefer, you know, his earlier material. and his record since he uh remixed it and changed the sound up of it quite a bit the life of Pablo I think is I think is one of his best hmm oh no longer a title exclusive yes yes no longer

title exclusive but still like you still can't buy it you still can't go on iTunes and buy it there's still no physical copies of it you can only stream it at the class action lawsuit but yes yes but still apparently that hasn't changed anything like it's still not physically or even digitally available so if you want to listen to you You just have to stream it. But yeah, that's probably the most negativity I've received on a, on a single review. The weekend review is almost a fluke in a way because it was a negative review. And he does have a lot of hardcore fans who love his shit.

And whenever I give a negative review to his stuff, like I get a lot of downvotes on it. But part of the reason I got so much negativity on that review is initially the project was anonymous. So like nobody quite knew or understood who was singing. who was producing, how many people were involved. Interesting. And, you know, and there were some video, there were some grainy videos of like Able Test Face singing and there was like, you know, another singer, like kind of dancing along with him.

So, you know, from the outset, given how consistent the production was, and it was true that early on he was working with like a single producer who in a way was a part of the group, but then Abel ended up taking the sound and just like going to other producers and being like, can you make me something like this? So now he works with a lot of different people to make them. But at the time when I was sort of working on the review when listening to the stuff, like all of this is still being learned. So in the middle of writing my review, it's suddenly just this flood of information comes out where I didn't fully understand the personnel who was involved, who wasn't. And then I dropped the review like just after all of this came out.

So then as soon as the review was out, all the fanboys and all the fan girls like started attacking me right away. Like, it's one guy, you fucking idiot. It's not a whole fucking band, you dumbass. Didn't you know anything? And it's like, listen, like, we just learned this now. Like, I clearly wrote this like last week as this information still had not come out yet. Like, and it's so funny, like, what people will jump down your throat about, like, when they're really passionate about something. Even though they themselves don't really know much more about it than you do because they're just learning at the same rate that you are.

But a lot of the downvotes that come with that review come from people just like acting like they need. know fucking everything about the weekend when they only know what's available on the internet just like everybody else i feel like um music is probably a more difficult medium to try and persuade someone to understand your perspective than film you think so well yeah because like music is you can have comments to make on the production quality and i guess the lyricism but most of what people get out of music, most music listeners is always just going to be the emotion that they feel are like the tone or the image of the artists that they enjoy. And no matter what you say, there's always going to be people that they relate to that image and that tone and that feel so much

that that's all that matters in a sense. And I'm not saying that anything more should matter if that's what they want to experience. Whereas with films, I've gotten a lot of comments from people, if let's say I'm talking about how the entire plot of the movie just falls apart when you start thinking about it. That's something where a lot of people can watch and they can be like, you know what? Yeah, you've actually raised a few decent points. And maybe they'll say, yeah, I still enjoy the movie, but yeah, you're right, it's incredibly flawed or something like that. I feel like it's a bit more difficult to make that case when you're reviewing something like music where it's more expression than narrative in the majority of cases. I think what you're described.

there, and this can apply to films, but mostly films where I think viewers might be super invested in a certain actor or a certain character, like no matter whether the film is technically or narratively great, this person just loves Batman or they just really love Matt Damon, no matter what the fuck they do. Yeah, I love Batman. Yeah, what you're describing, there's just kind of like a cult of personality thing. You know, like some people just fucking love David Bowie, even his super. mediocre late 80s early 90s stuff you know what I mean but because they're just like

hardcore David Bowie fans no matter what David Bowie does like it's just amazing and it's true and those people you you're not going to convince but there is a decent segment of the music fandom the music listening population out there which I think might have expanded in the internet age because I think it's opened up the musical conversation a lot that essentially approach music listening a lot in the same way that some people approach comic book collecting. And, you know, they really want to know about the production aspects of the record and they really want to know about, you know, the conditions under which an album was recorded and what the artist was going through and what the narratives of the album were and just

basically like the nitty-gritty details of an album and they basically judge the quality of a record on those things alone. And not as much the cult of personality aspect to it, but it's true. you know, you see that follow artists like Beyonce everywhere, you know, who no matter what she's doing, it's like, Slay Queen, Slay. You see that following, you know, artists like Kanye West everywhere who, with some people, you just cannot say a single bad thing about Kanye West. However, one of those artists for sure. However, there is like a decent subsection of his fan for him, Kanye too, though, who are big fans of what I do.

You know what I mean? So as as stubborn as some people like that might be. A lot of them are open to hearing alternative perspectives, so. Alex? For sure. Well, I pissed off pretty much every fan base in existence. Yeah, that's basically your M.O. Except Mars bars.

That's a common baby. I hear you're still getting, like, lots of harassment from the fans of dust. Constantly. They call themselves dust defenders. Dust bunnies. Yeah, dust bunnies, dust defenders. Dust bunnies. They still send you hate mail, death threats.

One that stands out to me are the Sonic the Hedgehog fans. Oh yeah. Yeah. Because I fucking hate Sonic. I mean, if they're still a fan in this generation, it's like, of course they have to be die hard. Yeah. Like, if you're a fan during like 2010 Sonic especially, like, that's a special breed of fans. I just find it funny.

The only thing that ever gets to me is when I stumble across like a comment chain or somewhere on Reddit where people are like quoting things that they think I've said and I'm just like, I've never said anything even remotely similar to that. You're just completely misquoting. I fucking love those. The urge to reply to them has to be subdued because it's like, God damn it. Just fuck off. Well, Alex, you're the only one who's managed to make light of it by taking their comments

and putting it in its own show on your channel and then making money off of it, which is brilliant. Yeah, so the more controversy, better for you. Yeah. I just feel like it encourages more people to leave stupid comments when you do that. That's good. He makes more money that way. It's brilliant. I've actually, I've looked through so many comments now. I want to say I'm pretty good at being able to weed out the ones which are obviously fake. There are certain signs you can look for. Little secrets of the, the comment trade that you can delve into. Little secrets that you guys are not allowed to know. only I can know.

You're the expert. Yeah, it's my forte. All right. I guess that about wraps up this podcast. Everybody said what they wanted to say. We do have, one of you has a movie to recommend.

Don't you? I hope you thought about it. Yeah, I thought about it. Okay. Yeah, I've got down thought about it. All right. So this time, seeing as my first choice was kind of a UK-based

film, I thought I'd go, with my other homeland, a film from there. I was born in New Zealand, so I like films from New Zealand. A kiwi. So my recommendation is Taika Wittiti film from 2010

called Boy. I don't know if you guys have seen it or not. I haven't seen it. I haven't. Have you seen it, Adam? No, I have not. Awesome. I did it again.

Yeah, we did it. I also have not seen that for the Wilder people. Oh, really? Oh, that's a good one too. Yeah, this guy's one of my favorite. favorite directors. I look forward to seeing what you guys think. All right.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing it. Anybody listening to the podcast, you should also check out this film before the next episode, which will be two weeks from now, because we will be having a spoiler discussion on this film. Boy! By Taika. Yeah, who is easy to find? Because the last one I picked was kind of a nightmare for some people to actually get their hands on. but oh boy but most importantly

listen to my channel and watch my channel and subscribe I'm the best YouTuber number one thank you so much for joining us yeah thank you fandango

thanks for having me on it's been fun it's been very fun we did it