Sardonicast - Sardonicast 174: Megalopolis, AfrAId, Don't Let the Riverbeast Get You!

Episode Date: October 14, 2024

Support the Show for $2 a month and receive all future episodes early at https://sardonicast.com and https://www.patreon.com/Sardonicast. Website: https://sardonicast.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Sardonicast Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/sardonicast Twitter: https://twitter.com/sardonicast Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sardonicast Sardonicast Highlights: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8AhJ0bzQgs5fb9m_ZCRqkw/featured Alex's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/IHEOfficial Adam's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/YourMovieSucksDOTorg Alex's Twitter: https://twitter.com/IHE_OFFICIAL Adam's Twitter: https://twitter.com/2gay2lift Adam's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/YMS Intro music by: https://www.youtube.com/user/anUnkindnessvideo Timestamps: 0:00 Megalopolis 35:58 AfrAId 1:02:02 Don't Let the Riverbeast Get You! 1:26:05 Questions 1:52:05 Outro + recommendation

Three, two, one. You know what a boss is in a video game. It's the monster you have to kill to get to the next level. That was a quote from Efraiyai. I'm Adam from your movie sex. This is Sardonicast. Hello. Hi, I'm Alex from I.H.E.

And man, there were three horror comedies this episode in multiple different ways. Yeah. You can interpret that. Lots of quotes to pick from. I know. No shortage. Riverbees probably has some beat for the best, for the best quotes here. But man, AI's got some good ones too, but sure ain't Megalopolis.

That's for... Did you have the Mr. Man growing up? The what? Did you read those books? The Mr. Men. This is going to make sense. Mr. Man? Mr. Men.

It was like a collection of children's books. And each one is like, you know, Mr. Happy. Mr. Hungry, Mr. So on and so forth. That sounds familiar, yes. Yeah, they were like... They're pretty famous children's books. Yeah, yeah.

I think I've seen some Mr. Happy or something. One of I had like a top hat. Yeah, because I say that because I have a cup of tea. I have a cup of tea with me right now that is themed with the grumpy, the Mr. grumpy cup. Oh. And I bring that up because I'm fresh off Megalopolis, fresh. Yeah.

It finished like... Literally. hour and a half ago, whatever. Yeah, so this might be the freshest reaction to a movie ever on this podcast for me. Certified fresh. As I say, I'm grumpy because I just got back from Megalopolis. Oh my God. Everybody's kind of morbidly curious, as was I.

And somehow, not worth it. Not worth it despite my low expectations is how I felt. Yeah, in so many different ways. It's kind of annoying to me because it was like I could see ideas here or different timelines like in the movie that I could picture, oh, there's a version of this that isn't good, but maybe is crazy enough to be entertaining or like wacky enough or using that 100 plus million dollar budget to show me something new or crazy or just be this big, ambitious over the top or to project. But like, you don't get any of it. It's genuinely incomprehensible for a lot of it. Yeah. Like, what is the plot of this movie?

It's so boring. It's like, it's the Southland Tales problem where it's like, what actually are we talking about here? What is the plot? The plotting is, it's so uninteresting. There are people like, yawning out loud in my cinema. Like, it's so uninteresting to just follow. Because it's nearly impossible.

It's like, yeah, I get thematically, I guess, what you're going at here, these allusions of comparing contemporary America with Rome at its peak and all this kind of imagery, but it's also supposed to be the science fiction fantasy where the main character can stop time, but the rules of the time stopping are never really indulged in, and it's all more, it's way more vague and non-literal? That's not like the appeal of the movie. I really, it's almost like false advertising to me. That trailer that was going around was that scene for the movie.

from the opening where he's like, stop time, and he's at the top of the tower, and he's, well, this is like a crazy concept. That's like the hook of the movie, I guess, and that's how it starts. Then it never really returns to that. It stays abstract. It's more like a Randian, like, political thriller

with these like random characters who are, they're supposed to be like plotting against each other, like Roman emperors and these families and dynasties that betray each other, but it doesn't care about the characters. It doesn't care about indulging in anything like expanding on anything or giving you a reference point to make you care. It's not the world that's interesting. It's not the characters for damn sure and it ain't the dialogue.

In fact, the dialogue is so atrocious in this movie basically doesn't let you. Pay attention to it. It's so like, even if the scene is well shot or well presented or there's some cool ideas and that is ruined by that dialogue, how good it's so. It's terrible. Yeah. And I'm trying to avoid the word pretentious, but like that's how it feels in the Southland Tales kind of way where it's like, yeah, I truly understand like what you're

pointing at here, these parallels you're trying to make these, this deep commentary you're trying to make on society and the future and how we're held down by the powers and the mayor and it's all corrupt and we need to tear it down, all this kind of stuff, this packaging, oh my God, oh my God, I was bored. Yeah. I was so bored. It's the most boring movie. And even the people that are like, it goes crazy.

Everyone's saying what crazy is, but it's like, it's really not. not yeah the craziness is just the idea of the director making this movie that's the craziest thing about it like him having this idea that apparently he came up within the 80s and was talking about on the set of apocalypse now and it's like this dream project of his it's like man this this this needs something else this it's just so obtuse and it feels like it was only made for him which I guess is kind of the point but it's like make me understand tell me a story give me character connect to like what what are we doing here we got Shia LaBef he's what was that character he's like the cousin to Adam driver he becomes like a revolutionary figure who's like a

neo-Nazi kind of um what was that about I don't know what anything was about how does any of this relate to each other I don't know what anything was about exactly all of these scenes are just so random they don't seem to link to each other in any way Can I just bring up spoilers? Because I don't even know how you'd spoil the movie really, but... I mean, yeah, we can... Let's spoil it, but let's also tell people, you don't have to see this movie and you shouldn't.

And there's nothing about it that's rewarding in any kind of way. Even with that one little marketing gimmick tidbit, it's absolutely fucking pointless and disappointing. Yeah, and I say spoilers, like only technically, though, because, I mean, whatever I tell you, could not ruin the... experience of the movie or spoil the plot in the movie because it wouldn't spoil the boredom for you no you'll be getting bored either way it's not like the six cents so oh man no the whole framing of the movie is completely no there's nothing like that in

here but yeah there's a point in the movie where there's a big because yeah going back to the sci-fi kind of epic setting there's a big like show that's put on with this character that I think is introduced in that scene who like within this like three minute montage she's established and oh my god what's his face um charler buff has a like a little memory stick that sabotages this big show with this musical lady in her performance her sci-fi performance with her see-through dress and then it turns into this like a framing of adam driver because it's revealed her age as 16 and this and it's just like where did this come from like where was the setup for this like who is

is anybody. When people are talking, you don't care about their relation to each other. And it's just, it's so like, heady and over itself. And it's stuff just comes out of nowhere. Something will hit you, it will side swipe you. And then 10 minutes later, it will give you context of what that was or meant. And it's not in a satisfying way. But it's like, oh, this, this timeline's all over the place. And it's unpredictable. And it doesn't come across like that. It's more just like, I don't know, it's just slapping you across the face. Like, do you get it yet? Do you? This is just so crazy. ambitious, isn't it? It's all about ambition, like the main character with, oh, it's so obnoxious. At least with Southland Tales, it just felt like they were trying to fit way too many ideas into

the same movie and it just became like a jump-in-mess. Whereas I don't even feel like that was the case here. Like, the amount that they expressed within two hours and 20 minutes could have easily been expressed in less time. It's not, it's not a situation where it's like, oh, they were just trying to fit way too much into it. It's just terrible communication. Like, everything is terribly communicated. And in it, I got to clear my throat. There we go. Yeah, I'm not one of those. Sorry. And it felt like they were trying to tell a story. And it felt like there was trying to be a narrative. And it felt like there was trying to be characters. But it was a very embarrassing attempt at all of those things. Watching the film, it's like, oh, okay, you thought this was a

story. You thought that this dialogue between these characters would be something that anybody would be able to absorb in any kind of way. And it's embarrassing that you thought that because it's embarrassingly presented. It's embarrassingly executed. Yeah, exactly. The story's presented as if it is character-led. It's about you buying into this emotional relationship with these various different characters and there's a murder mystery at the heart of it. Yeah, I didn't care. Love is brought up multiple times. But yeah, they never give you a reason to care. And that is through that presentation. Like, you're never shown a lot of these more interesting concepts that would be hooks if they were presented in the right way or things were mixed up or there's just, you were never given a reason to care.

And it's just confusing. Yeah. And not in a fun way. Because confusing movies and, like, baffling over the top movies can be interesting and fun. But there's no angle. Yeah. This was sold to me. there were a few, there were more than one person that said that this was like a hundred million

dollar Neil Breen film. I wish it was that. That's what I was looking forward to. That's what I was hoping it would be. Like, I thought it would be a beautiful mess. That's what I was hoping for yeah. It's not beautiful. It's just a mess. And that's it. It's not even an entertaining mess. It's a boring fucking mess. Yeah. It's terrible. You just sat there like waiting for something to happen and then like two hours in when something happens. Yeah. And a little crowsinging. crossbows like whipped out and it's like a big moment or whatever. I see my penis. Yeah.

It's like by then I'm so over it and was more like well where's the energy of this but for the whole movie? Yeah. It's like that level of craziness for the whole thing. I'd be there for it. Exactly. Because it's so over the top and silly. It's a real finally something happened a moment. Oh definitely yeah.

But they'll play like the emotional score will build up and there'll be like a holding on a character's face like emoting. but there's nothing. Like you want to be there with the character, but there's nothing to grip onto. There's absolutely nothing. And like, what is it even saying at the end of it all about these characters, about, it's hard to take anything away from it

outside of this strange, just utopian idea clashing with the reality. They were almost getting to like a cool scene with the Carlos... Mencier. Menciers. scene. Esposito, sorry.

God, I'm shot with all these films I've just injected into my brain in the last 24 hours. Yeah, we're recording this early because we're both going to be gone or busy. Yeah, yeah. So we did a very condensed schedule where we watched a bunch of movies in a very short time frame. This is recorded like four days after. the last episode. Yeah, we normally have a couple weeks, but yeah. Yeah, it was, there was a scene where, yeah, Giancarlo Esposito, and Adam Driver, who were

polar opposites as far as what they represent, and it's very obvious and not subtle. And it was like the first time, oh, they're having a dinner scene, they're talking about the concepts. This is kind of interesting. But it's just not interested in that kind of thing or framing it through a relatable character. It's just, it's too abstract. and two all over the place and it can't decide if it wants to be crazy wacky this is

none of this is really literal so just whatever but it doesn't really present like that it's more it is more trying to be like an epic it just doesn't work no not at all not in the slightest and uh yeah it's uh it's just how can you have a movie Where one of the selling points is that a real person in real life in the theater goes up on stage during the movie and talks to Adam Driver's character through the screen. And still have it be not worth watching even for that moment. So when in the movie was that? Because I was hyped for that and waiting for that, but it never happened for me. Never happened?

I assume. What? I assume widely they're not doing it. Yeah, I was, I was waiting for it. It was one of the main reasons. You got scammed. You got scammed, bro. Straight up.

I feel like I've been scammed. Why do you think I'm so grumpy about this shit? What the fuck? So you watched that, it was like a regular screening. It wasn't a part of the Film Fest thing. Yeah. It came out today, the first showing today on the day it came out. Well, you can literally watch clips of it on YouTube at this point.

Like, people have been recording it. Yeah, yeah. I've seen like screenshots of it. But I was waiting for it. It's literally just one moment where it's like basically a transitionary scene. So what I was expecting or anticipating or hoping for was that this movie would just be like so full of meta, fourth wall breaking ideas that there would be a moment where like the Adam Driver's character is forced to reflect with himself and speak to the audience or

speak like through the film and have some sort of introspective moment or something. But instead, it's literally, it's the most fucking pointless, unsatisfying thing in the world where all it is is just a guy goes and asks them like, so how's about this megalopolis project you're building? What's that going to be like? And then Adam Driver's like, it's a big project. It's a good project. Like, just a bunch of nonsense where the context of what's happening is.

he's essentially being asked a question at like a press Q&A, like a town hall meeting. Right. That's it. And so the guy on the podium is just a guy that is asking questions from the press, basically. And that's it. And it's just one question and it's meaningless. And for some reason during this scene, the framing is really weird.

So it's like they cut out, they, They shrank the frame so that it's just sitting at the bottom of the screen and taking up maybe like a sixth of the total screen space. Oh, I remember that shot. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, maybe there was a guy that forgot to come up. Maybe they showed the exact same cut, and maybe they just didn't hire a guy for that screening. That will be it, because I didn't have time to make detailed notes or really marinate on this yet. But yeah, that shot was weird, but I figured, oh, maybe there's just something going of my head.

Is this supposed to be resembling architecture in some way? I don't know. But I guess that was the reason. Yeah, there's supposed to be a guy there. Yeah, and then all Adam Driver says is just like, this project is a good, big project. Oh, my God. It's so relentlessly unsatisfying. Yeah.

Yeah, that's the way to put it, because, like, what are the stakes here? Like, why should I care about any of this? Like the whole time travel thing is the idea that he, I guess, has this gift, this superpower, and he's creating megalopolis with the ability to look forward in time. So he's like looking into future technology and applying it to himself. I don't know. Because his whole platform is like he has unobtainium pretty much from Avatar, where there's like there are the classic powers you know, the mayors and whatnot. and they build with steel and concrete they say but he builds with his unobtainium or whatever because they're it's like a permanent material or something but they never say where it comes from

or like I guess we're in spoilers he gets like shot in the head by like a child at one point yeah that was fun and he's kind of brought back to life with I I get the only way I can make it make sense in my head is with some kind of pulling some technology from the future or that seems to be what they were getting at because like you know that meme that always has shared with the or the utopia of blank and it's like a organic looking city with these natural looking shapes and whatnot that's kind of what he's building and they're getting at and they now and again will go to what megalopolis looks like but they they kind of skirt around it it's weird the the way it's put together is quite confusing in terms of just where you are spatially a lot of the time like where

Am I right now? Who are we right now? Like, why does any of this link to itself or matter? And it has no momentum in that sense. And yeah, like, you just never have any understanding of the stakes of why you should buy into it or care about it on any human level. And it's not like a purposefully kind of inhuman 2001 type thing where it's making this point and it's being kind of cold in its present.

It's not that. It feels like it's trying to do a kind of heightened reality, poor things kind of exaggerated style, but it just doesn't land. In fact, everything basically clashes against itself from the costume design to the sci-fi concepts. I mentioned the like see-through dress thing, the hologram dress. And we're just talking about in Mars Express how the hologram stuff in a sci-fi setting was used and how expressive it could be and played into characterizing and expressing that kind of stuff. But they just don't do anything with it. And that's like the whole point of sci-fi to me. You set it in the future and you can make pretty deep commentary about stuff that's going

on now and project to the future, but it's not really what it's concerned with. Yeah, there are rings that are on people's fingers that are recording devices and USB drives that look a little bit more futuristic. But that's not really the aesthetic. It's kind of like a 40s New York combined with Roman. The main character is called Caesar. It's like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't I'd like this abstracted just a little bit, you know? Yeah. Like, Mad Max was doing that where it's taking all this kind of like Roman inspiration, but it's like putting a spin on it, doing something cool with it, making a new world with it,

where this is just, that shot, this on the poster of him, you know, holding the Minecraft pickax. When that, when that shows up in the movie, it's like, what, dude, I thought this was going to be like, there's no scene where it, like, you're waiting for it, where it's going to, like, explain something. Where's the crafting? Yeah. Well, like him acquiring this time travel ability and us exploring it with him. And then forgetting how to do it for a scene. Yeah, like, why does he just randomly forget how to do it?

And then with the power of love, gets it back with Game of Thrones woman. Yeah. I believe in you. Oh, thanks. I can do it again. Everything is in service of nothing. is how I would describe this film. That should be the tagline.

I guess that's what bugs me about it there. Not a fable. Yeah, in service of nothing. But this, this cast is wild for what they're, like, wasting here. Like, there's, I don't really blame them at all. It's, like, no one could sell this dialogue. They've got, they've got Lawrence Fishburn doing this narration and trying to make it

sound like weighty and important and really hammering home the obvious parallels with Rome. He's Morpheus again. Yeah. But yeah, it's straight up. Literally. But again, like, there's just Jason Schwartzman is randomly in there and it's like, they, they attempt jokes now and again. The tone is all over the place. Like, does it want to be like funny and quirky or serious and grand and important? Because it's none of it. Orbury Plaza's a really weird performance and character like I normally like her she was really good in a white lotus recently um yeah you gotta watch that here i i don't know what they were going for she was like she was linked to like banks somehow but she was also like a news presenter and like fucks her way to the top

and it's just like what what does any of this have to what is happening like and i don't think it's like going over my head because I can't like I'm too dumb to understand this. It's more just like a how can anyone understand this? I feel like only Coppola I feel like could understand this. I'm not confident he does either. Yeah. Because like there's there are like flashes of this kind of interesting imagery, but it's just imagery in service of nothing.

You know, these like big Roman statues. Yeah, it's in like transitionary scenes. Yeah, exactly. It's a it's only, it's between scenes and that's it. Like, it's never used. And so they put these shots in the trailer. It's like, okay, well, it means nothing, really. It's not in service of anything.

Yeah, because the trailer kind of makes it look like it's going to be quite a visual effects heavy, yeah, sci-fi, I don't know, mystery. Big ideas. Big ideas. Crazy. From the godfather, from... From the Dawn himself. It's... I honestly think it's unwatchable.

I'm never going to watch this again. It's trash. I wanted to leave so badly about 90 minutes in And I haven't had that like genuinely for a while like this bad Yeah And there's just no excuse for it with the Like how does this happen? Is it just like yes man around him or I guess he has so much?

It's the fact that he self-financed it and no one was telling him what to do And he finally got to make the movie that he made wanted to make with nobody telling him what to do and it was a big piece of shit So also he hasn't been making good movies for a while it's just that no one's been paying attention to them like if you look at his director credits on iMdb he hasn't stopped making movies he's still he's been making movies that no one pays attention to that are bad i've seen like a couple of them it's just this is the one that people are seeing because he's like this is the one guy's and the whole marketing behind it and the story of himself financing it and the fact that it has

that weird fucking gimmick and the, you know, controversial, you know, news tidbits and him saying, like, I only hired canceled actors because I wanted my movie not to be woke. And it's like, what? Yeah. Also, like, these actors are not really canceled. Like, John Void and Shailabuff are not, like, canceled. They're, like, maybe a little controversial. Calling them canceled actors, like, go fuck yourself. Why don't you point? Put like fucking army hammer in your movie if you want to make that play. And Kevin Spacey.

Yeah, Army Hammer, Kevin Spacey, Ezra Miller. Go make a real canceled actors movie. Asshole. What's John Voight done? I'm not up to date on that one. He's just, I know shy's business, but... Annoying, conservative is that's all... That's all there is to it, I'm sure.

Yeah. Yeah, there's like no edge to it. And the whole... Shire Lebooth's character. character horrendous. You should have gotten Roman Polansky and Victor Selva. Well, yeah, make it a true cancel project. Because, like, I don't know, it's a bit unfair to say that and then have, like, Adam Driver

at the front. Oh, yeah. Yeah, because then it's like, if you say that to people in the news, then it's like, then all the people that are in the movie that aren't really canceled, like Adam Driver and Aubrey Plaza are going to be like, what the, why would you say that? Yeah, what do you? People are going to think I'm a cancelled actor that I've done something. Oh, I guess Dustin Hoffman as well.

He's had something. He's canceled? I think he had something like that about him. I don't think any of these actors are canceled. I don't think a single one of them is canceled. Yeah, if you use quite a loose definition of canceled, I guess. Oh, there's some controversy maybe. But they're still working, obviously.

And you hired them. But I didn't have sub. titles which was another and it just made it so difficult to follow um because there's so many like random names they're throwing about and new characters every scene but Dustin Hoffman shows up I'm trying to understand what he's saying it's like dude you got to clear your throat man you it's like you can't understand what you're saying it's it's crazy um and loads of the movie is like that like it is je I'm I'm not over exaggerating of Like, it is incomprehensible a lot of this.

I'm trying to, maybe I just needed to marinate. To see the brilliance of it, but I somehow highly doubt that. This Joker is out next weekend. Oh, is it? This film is fucked. This film is fucked. Yeah. Yeah, in a week, I think it's out.

So I don't know what they were thinking with this. Obviously, it might even make, like, single millions. back. Like who was going to see this outside of like freaks like me? You know? What the fuck is Lions Gates problem this year in particular? I guess they just want they're just, they've had enough. They've put their hands up. Just just kill us. They're going to sell to another larger company. I think they're fine right now. But 120 million dollars on this. And yeah, I don't know how much of that is like when they say self-funded. surely I guess some of it will be put up by Lionsgate

no Lionsgate just bought the distribution rates so the film was already made and then they picked it up right I see God that's a lot on it but it's still like a terrible business decision yeah even that license fee I doubt they're gonna make back I don't know maybe on streaming I but they're like trying to get people to go out to IMAX Everybody that's watching this is just morbidly curious. That's it.

Yeah. Nobody is watching it because they think it's going to be good. Mm-hmm. And still everyone's disappointed. Like, this is just the worst-case scenario. Yeah, yeah. Do you think this is going to be like a Southland Tales thing where it gets like an audience like over time as far as like, oh, you guys just don't get it? Like, look, if you just analyze it deep enough, then we can figure out.

No. It's too lame. even yeah it's just a meme that's it because that's the thing where it's like Southland tales say what you will about it but that is stuck in my memory now forever that film is so it's so wild what they were doing I remember cars fucking I remember the cars fucking I remember a big like blimp and it has more humor though too and I remember a line at the end of like him saying like I only losers kill themselves or something like I don't remember what the line was yeah yeah this weird the

pimp line and this is like it's a bit more absurd like the rock is in there I feel like I could watch Southland's tales a second time I don't feel like I could watch Megalopolis a second time that's exactly what I was thinking to we're about halfway through the movie I was like I never want to see this film again ever whereas I'd be willing to a Southland because yeah those it's just so ridiculous redonculus yeah it was really I don't know Pess off with this movie. It's insulting to its audience. It's like, cool, make your movie, I guess, fool yourself, but you're only making it for yourself. Yeah. Like, cool, man. I'm happy for you, but it sucks. More like Megapolopolis. More like Francis Ford Coppola. Get out of here. Because, come on, let's be real with that name. This should be a comedy. Megalopolis. Like, the actors, they're trying their best to make it, like, serious when they're whipping that word out, but it's goofy.

It's like trying to sell unobtainium. He's trying to like evoke the Fritz-Lang Metropolis thing. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Remember Ben-Hur? The Metropolis is like, uh-huh. Yeah, again, with the like Roman. It's like too obvious but also too obtuse.

It's a weird combo in that way, actually. It's just like how, if you sat him down, if you sat Francis down and was like, give me the elevated pitch for this. A what? How do you condense it? like the just the brief like cliff notes what is this movie Adam driver um I'm a but then like

your response is going to be like but why how all the questions that you would say in response to that none of them are answered well he self-funded it so there was no elevator pitch he didn't have to pitch it to single soul and that's why I got me these ideas to somebody maybe in the mirror he's like doing the paper

with the pickaxe in the mirror he told them to his best friend Victor Salva oh my god oh my god it's so boring two hours 20 minutes oh no excuse for this yeah it literally just yeah everything is in service of nothing that that's the way you described the film and like that that's it that's the that's the summary that's the cliff notes it's boring mess and then maybe a funny thing happens every like fucking 30 minutes but they're like

they're not even evenly spaced out there's like hours they go by just like nothing happening if there was a cut of this movie and it was just Shiaella Buff I think I would like it because he was funny he was funny bad

he was funny bad I don't know what they were doing with his like costume design and I don't know what they were channeling there But, yeah, this is a curse project all round. Even on the poster, it looks like a fake, it looks like one of those deviant art posters that like fans make of something.

Where like, it literally looks like Morbius who's in the middle of the poster by an eagle. With the Minecraft picture. It's like, this is a joke. And then the, you know, Esposito being there. And it's, oh my God. This is goofy. And not in a fun way.

Yes. It's a big piece of trash. I gave it a two. I think I'm lowering it to a one. Yeah, this is an easy half style for me. It's soured in my memory. It's worse than Borderlands. Yeah.

I think it actually is because at least Borderlands was pretty short, you know? It's just gone in a flash. Yeah, Borderlands was much easier to get through. Yeah, much easier. And Borderlands was much more amusing, even in terms of, like, thinking about the production or thinking about, like, what they were trying to do or how it got made. There was more to chew on out of like it being a disaster project. Yeah.

Than Megalopolis. And Megalopolis, that's the only thing going for it. Like, that's the only intrigue. Yeah, there's more of an emotion actually attached to it. Like, the anger at least is a response where like this is more like apathy. Like, really, dude? You just like wasted our time like for this? Two hours, 20 minutes, like self-serving.

He tricked everyone into watching it. He, like, he duped people. I feel tricked. Yeah. Because it's like, you don't have to overcomplicate it. It's just like, okay, one good character. Nope. One good scene even.

Nope. There are some good shots, I guess, but in service of nothing, it's like some okay cinematography here and there. But again, it's just in service of nothing. This plot that's just all over the place. What play? The sci-fi concept is not part of it. Yeah, exactly.

Like, what part of this am I supposed to enjoy or like or be entertained by or enthralled by or questioned by or get me thinking these concepts it it doesn't it just kind of bamboozles you and uh balls you it's the worst thing a film can be is it's just that level of boring like cut this in half and make it every scene like just uh two seconds long and maybe entertaining but uh this is plotting this is this is unbearable this movie i was hoping for an omega lull police and so was i But it was not. Yeah.

Oh, well, at least we get the term megalopolis. And as you said, we can just use it as megapolus. Yeah, it's like, it's not even going to be fun to meme on, you know? No. It's just, it's, we're done with this. Like, I guess enough people know about it that people will be meming on it for a couple months. Like, maybe Red Letter Media will do a review and, like, people will be joking about it. But, like.

But even then, I feel like all the best memes have already happened. You know, people doing the. Minecraft jokes to just get over it jokes and yeah like what is even left to mock with it literally nothing I wonder how Adam Driver's career will be after this well yeah he's keeps being attached to these cursed projects you know like Don Quixote um that was that one called 63 or something oh yeah I never saw that one but no it wasn't say what was it called it was it 61 it began with a six I never actually saw that one uh 65 65 as in 65 He can't even pull the title

Came out like a year Ferrari was cursed House of Gucci was cursed I'm pretty sure the last duel was cursed He's uh Yeah he's a little bit trapped It seems in these Crazy projects

And I think this is his worst As far as like his involvement in it His performance in it His what he's adding to it Like this is the worst movie he's ever been in Worse than 65 I haven't seen that but um Well I have it as a two

and it was genuinely awful, but it's only 90 minutes. God, that makes a difference. It genuinely does. I don't know the 50 minutes. It's a 90 minute movie that feels like over two hours, and Megalopolis is a two hour,

20 minute long movie that feels like four hours. So. Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh, ah, uh, it's,

uh, disposable, terrible, don't see it, not worth it, not even if you're curious. Fuck this movie. One out of ten. Yeah, don't go out and see this. Yeah.

All right, we saw another horror movie. A foray-eyed. Finally something good. Starring John Cho. And it looks like he chose the right role if he doesn't

like his career. But maybe money, I'm sure, like, this is a good paycheck movie for these random character actors that show up for a couple scenes. So, yeah, this movie looked a little intriguing in the sense that it looked bad and kind of funny. And I thought it was kind of funny. I thought it was successfully funny. Yeah, I love this. This was a much better watch than Megalopolis if you want to watch something funny bad. Yeah, and a sci-fi as well.

It's Blumhouse and I don't know, they can really bug me with the M-3 gun and Black phone are on the poster. I got more enjoyment unironically from this than either of those movies. This was like the perfect level of bad entertaining for me. I thought this was hilarious because we've done this to death. There's literally like a Simpsons episode that is this movie. Yeah. The episode that's like parodying 2001 and like Pierce Brosnan and it's like an egg.

I and just this plot of this movie basically is what happens. Like we've seen it all before, but it's just so beautifully dumb and like badly performed and these awful kid actors and where they take it. And again, it's kind of got a funny story going on here with the director, writer, being a really random pull for this movie. The director of American Pie about a boy, the golden compass, Twilight Saga, New Moon. and now this. Yeah, he wrote this project, too. Yeah, he's the only one credited too, huh? Yeah, this is his thing.

And it's crazy, because anytime there's something new in society, in pop culture, there'll be a horror movie because it's a part of the human condition is just like being afraid of new things. And so you go like, oh, AI is a new thing that's happening. So you go, let's make a horror movie about it. And, you know, in concept, you could make something interesting if you just want to make like a AI horror movie, I guess. But as you already said, like, this has been done before. Like, this isn't even a new concept.

Like, oh, no, my AI is bad. It was to scare me. That's part of what is so incredible about 2001, the fact that that movie was made in the 60s and how, like, press you. it is to this day, you know? And even outside of 2001, there's ex-Marcona. I mean, Black Mirror has covered this kind of stuff a million times. It's not fresh in any way. But I guess the angle could have been, yeah, the AI generated stuff is a controversial hot topic right now. And the kind of intro sequence of the movie is kind of trying to play into the freaky-looking early AI video stuff that looks wrong and is creepy and I don't know this there's something

buried in there not when they start making like scary cursed emojis like as part of that that's like really lame and unscary and hilarious yeah why why do they put emojis on it like that's not it felt so inaccurate but not just like normal emojis they're like they're like I feel like I've seen them like on Twitter or like attached to memes you know the hyper detailed emojis people use. It's like those, but like a zombie slash scary version of emojis. It's like, whoa, that's crazy that you decided to do that. If they actually just did like early fucking dolly two generations or something, then it would

have been scarier. But even if some of the things in this are like AI assisted in terms of imagery, there's way too much of the human touch. in this, and it's really obvious, and it's done very poorly. And it's like, okay, we're just going to add, like, an extra frame here of, like, a different face. Like, bloop. It's like, okay, this has been done in other horror movies, like, the whole, like, oh, we're going to show two frames of a scary face.

Like, it's no, it's not any different or new just because you use the word AI in this. You're just doing the thing that's already been done a million times. What does I have to do with AI? Yeah. Do something fresh with it. Use the concept. Use the concept. Like they didn't.

They really didn't. They use them more like a ghost. It's more a ghost kind of presentation instead of a thoughtful 2001 thing. It's like, oh, this is a scary character that is manipulating people. Yeah, it's so dumbed down.

It's like the general audiences vague concept of what an AI might be or, you know, they're showing it like learning with a progress bar like at the bottom of the screen like going up as if they're yeah you know it's like all for for humans the way it's presented it's all like dumbed down simplified yeah it's if i wrote a script about ai i would want to have some sort of comprehension of the subject you think right that makes sense huh this is this is very much like in the same vein as oh new things are scary i'm going to write a movie about it this

this is done with about the same level of understanding of AI as all of those dumb horror movies or cautionary tales of just like the internet's new or like oh video games are new what if there was a killer video game and it's like so clear that the writer is just an old guy that's detached from this subject and doesn't know anything about it and is deciding to make a movie anyway and it's like okay well not everybody watching the movie is that dumb so you You've just made yourself look dumb by writing this movie. Yeah, because they have, they try to, like, dumb it down for the audience. Like, everyone's hyped for chat GPT5, right?

Well, we're made, this is like chap GPT 5 million. Whoa. That kind of dialogue, that kind of, the algorithms just give it that illusion. Yeah. The most advanced AI ever made that's powered by a quantum computer. and it still hasn't really figured out image generation. We're still in the past with that one. Yeah.

Everything else it can do great. It felt very like phone bad, this movie, you know, like, in such an obvious way. Like, every scene they're all on their phones, like, staring at it, and it's making this really obvious point with that. But it's more that the humor just comes from the way the story escalates and where they take it, you know, when the AI. For the first half of the movie, it's just like, look, AI is amazing. It's fixing everything in their lives. But it must be too good to be true, huh? And it starts, like, killing people.

Yeah, and I guess the structure is each one of these family members, a family of four, each has their relationship with their AI, and it does something for each of them in a unique way. One of the more entertaining ones being the teenage girl character and how it winds up. affecting her life at school with the, I think we mentioned on like a previous episode how, um, AI is being used to like generate these like sexual videos of people and create havoc in schools and all that kind of stuff. And it's that character's story. Um, but the drama they pull out of it with the, her boyfriend and her gay boyfriend. The gayest, the gayest boyfriend of all time. I love that scene

I was dying in all that stuff with the boyfriend and driving around and the AI apology and all this kind of thing Spoilers everybody This is a funny movie so maybe you should see it But spoilers for a foray-eyed Yeah so she I've been calling it Afor-Aid

Affir-Aid Affir-Aids The way that the title was stylized in the original title on IMDB. They wound up just changing it after the fact. But the AI was in caps, but the eye looks like an L, so people were confusing it,

thinking it was Aferald. Yeah, it does look like that, actually. Anyway. Yeah, so she sends her boyfriend a picture, I guess, just of her face. And then he uses that and makes like a really obviously fake AI porn video and then somehow everybody in the school sees it. He's like,

well, I didn't think it would be a big deal. I didn't actually know. And it's like, it's funny that in the script of this movie, we needed an explanation for how he got a photo of her, like as if every kid doesn't have a million photos of themselves already on the internet. Like, she had to have sent that one photo to him for him to be able to do this for some reason. Like, okay. And then because the AI named AIA, Aaya, is now in their home and wants to be friends, it avenges her. And does so by, I guess, making like a very well-edited, comprehensive, like, debunking video, pretending that it's made by the girl and just being like, look.

I've hacked into the mainframe and I've geolocated where the original video came from and this is his address and this is the kid at school. We got him. It's like, okay, well now everybody thinks you're like a fucking super hacker. So that's kind of fun. Yeah, she like doxes him. Also, he told you. So, there was no mystery.

You didn't have to like come up with that fake doxing thing. Yeah. And then also the AI is making these like fake videos of people anyway. Like she she fakes his apology video. So it's like you could have just gotten a confession like that too. Yeah, true. It talks on the phone as other people and still mimics their voices and whatnot. Yeah, you're right. The way that this film presents that conflict when when she does the debunking video pretending to be the girl, the AI is like, oh, we found the guy. the way that the film presents this like the girl is like sad about it she's like oh no

like as if this is a bad thing that has happened it's like what he's just gonna do that to somebody else like it's not a bad thing that he's getting called out for this like what do you mean oh I didn't want the AI to actually make him upset like what

why is the film presenting it like that that's so weird yeah that is weird because it really should be a crime to me honestly it is he does to her oh like AI

stuff like in yeah I guess it is in law now um but yeah it's just the whole the classic Blumhouse like oh we got this this kind of low budgets 12 million budget how do we make this low budget thing scary and when it's like AI it's a bit more abstract and they really struggle making it a kind of tangible threat they have to basically come up with these elaborate ways to have humans be controlled by the aIs or the AI sorry Yeah, what the fuck was happening with that? Because like throughout the first half of the movie, there's these flashes, these dream sequences where these like CG monsters are like coming out of the AI or like a flashing in the AI in the videos of it.

It's like a really funny, goofy, like more haunted type way of presenting it. But then they kind of go into these characters who have like a screen over their face. They're humans that have this technology to put their AI's, I guess, face. over their face that I thought they were gonna have like automaton's their protogen masks yeah and yeah so they had that element going on as well and going into this crazy like conflict towards the end with these this family who have a child that's gone missing and the AI is just done this crazy 40 chess to get these paranoid parents to have the main characters at gunpoint because the AI is just so smart and able to manipulate everybody and yeah

But then it's the humanity out thinks the AI and that's how they win in the end with doing something that it didn't predict and this kind of stuff when I thought it would have kind of cool to have like a really dark ending like if that's actually where the film ended and they just like took the family out and it was like well AI won huh instead of going into yeah we we we beat AI type thing it's a horror movie like who cares at that point. Yeah, it's, it's, uh, very persuasive with the power of suggestion is basically how it does anything in the film, because it's just a smart home. It's like, what are you, what's it going to do? Flash the lights and give you a seizure. Like, exactly. What, what the fuck is it going to do? It,

it inherently has to like convince real people to do real things if it's going to do anything tangible that could influence your life and like kill anyone other than I guess the fact that the guy was driving a Tesla and it like crashed it and it just hacks into everything. Also, how did it hack into the fucking CD player? Like the radio. It's like pre-wifery, pre- Bluetooth. It's like, okay, well, was it like just going through the FM radio? And then if that's the case...

Yeah, does that have control over radio waves? If that's the case, then like they would have had to have had the radio turned on and set to a station and volume up that it would just like the station wasn't playing anything before I don't know none of it made any sense

no I just like the they structured scenes in this quite funny way where they try and have these like poignant full stop sentences at the end of them to be like whoa that's like the AI like concept right there that's gonna leave you thinking huh like um

when the AI asks the mother, what do you think you were made for? After that whole like ex-Marchina Turintaz bullshit. And it's just so like comically flat and low with all that kind of stuff. So like obvious and dumb. Yeah, obvious and dumb is the best way to describe this movie. Yeah. That should be the tagline.

And these random things that they keep including, like I don't think I've seen swatting in a in a movie to such a degree, like, uh, as this with the, like, 10 year old or whatever is taught how to swat by the AI and that's also like the downfall of the AI is because he knows how to swat. So is that like a, is that like a good thing we should be putting in movies? Like he, yeah. So much framed is like a good thing. Like that's how the conflict is resolved is through swatting the themselves. It is strange. And the whole reverse. feel I loved when the AI is like, well, my, my origin story is actually that I was birthed from the internet. I just scanned all of the internet and isn't the internet so nasty. So it

basically gets like radicalized by 4chan. Like, that's the explanation for like, why it's evil. And having lines like, read a book, touch grass, basically. Yeah. It just, it felt like the motivations were like, oh, I just want to be useful to this family. And then it only gets mad if the family tries to turn it off. And it's funny because like, so I thought of an interesting hypothetical. So the gay boyfriend gets killed by the AI because it like hacks

into the Tesla. And it's like, you messed with the wrong family. It's like, okay, so clearly this AI has some sort of like attachment protection programming. Right? About this family. It's like, okay, well, they're the only family that has this AI. So what if every home had this AI in it? Would there be competing AIs? So if like if if the gay boyfriend had an AI would there be two AIs trying to like control his vehicle like no you no this is my family like that'd be fun like if if we had a thoroughly explored concept here

right like if if we had someone who was a talented writer and actually thought about the things and the concepts in the film then they would think a little further ahead and be like, okay, well, what would happen if we pushed it to its logical extreme here? That could be a fun movie. Like, if it just went that crazy and there was like AI, like different families, AI is like fighting each other, this like AI battle. That would be ridiculous. That'd be too big and expensive though. Yeah, it has to be like small scale. Like, I mean, it would just be too high concepts. But also, like, we've seen other movies where they do like go to the, the logical conclusions, the extremes of, of the concepts. Like, we just talked about,

The substance is a great example of that. Like, it just keeps going, right? And it's like, well, what if this and what if this? Right? Yeah. They were trying to do like it's the single AI that is so ungodly powerful. Because it's the whole reveal with the quantum thing being fake. And it's like, oh, the original must be in the house then.

All this kind of stuff. And like it's like a mega tech company controlled and created by an AI that winds up buying John chose tech company, like marketing company, in order to try and get him like attached to the AI. It's like this real goofy framing and it's like making people do these arm gestures like that they've memorized for the whole setup at the ending with the shooters and the little boy doing the same arm gesture that the AI taught him to do to try and get them shot. It's like so, so goofy. It's hilarious.

Yeah. Man, it's not scary or anything like that for a single second. No. It's more just kind of like surreal seeing some of these actors just like here. Like, man, I can't say his last name, but he's that awesome character actor that just shows up in all sorts. Like he was recently in Late Night with the Devil. Oh, Dalmatian. Yeah, that's a lot easier.

David Dalmatian is a lot easier to say. He's just in it for like one or two scenes, just crazy over the top character. I'm glad I guess he got his paycheck, like the other random character actors that show up, but yeah. No one does a great job. What the hell? No. John Cho does his worst job to date.

His worst. Yeah, I mean, I haven't seen... He was the only thing keeping me going. Yeah. The child acting is horrendous, but hilarious. And they're all bad in, like, different ways. They're all very different bad performance. sentences. Yeah, yeah. Because you've got the little boy who's just, he's so young, you can't,

you can't. Yeah. And then like the teenage girl who can do a bit better, but then there's the dialogue and the story that's just so inherently dumb. Like, you just, I'm sorry, you don't stand a chance with like what, what you've been given here. Yeah, very, very obnoxious. Very, uh, just, it's crazy how uncreative and, And unambitious this film is. Like, we're talking about, like, the concept, when you involve things like AI, you would hope that someone thinks about things or, like, has an interesting idea of where it can go. Like, her came out in 2013. That was a thoroughly explored concept.

Yeah, exactly. They whip out, like, you biohack, bro? You a biohacker? That's what the Dalmatian guy is talking about What are you doing? Why are you sprinkling that in? You clearly don't care So the AI is helping them in their home And the personalities of these children change within like an hour of the AI

Existing Oh, we're going to help out and do the chores Because you can trade them in for points What can you trade the points in for? We don't know actually But they get points and so yeah it doesn't go long enough for them to cash them in the AI makes the children

useful members of society I guess it helps the daughter get revenge on her gay boyfriend and it also helps her start writing her thesis or whatever it helps the wife like choose a different career path and like all of these wonderful things are happening but then John Cho gets a bad dream

where he sees a monster coming through a door. Yeah. And then he's like, and then immediately his mind, he's like, this thing's just trying to manipulate us. This thing, it's trying to influence our decisions. It's like, okay, well, you could, you're still in control of your own decision making, right?

Like, if it suggests something, you don't have to do it. What you're saying is that its suggestions are so reasonable and well thought out and well tailored to you that you agree with it and it's making your life better. But we have to get rid of it now because it's trying to influence our decisions. What are you talking about? It's offering suggestions and you agree with them. Everybody agrees with them.

That's why it's working out for them. But they needed him to like want to get rid of it. Otherwise there's no conflict. Yeah, exactly. It just had to happen at that point. Yeah. There's no tangible reason to be afraid of this thing. In fact, they kind of show how easy it is to just turn off from its power brick and

it's gone. Surely the horror option would be to like disconnect it from that and then have it still be around somehow like it needs to be a force that you can't compete with or you know be intimidating in some way like beyond just a you know it's the title of the creator just close the screen or whatever meme like what is the threat from this fucking thing? It's like the guides. It lives in the clouds. Uh-huh, they're trying. They're trying to evoke something scary and ground. but it ain't working. Very embarrassing. Very embarrassing attempt at doing that and it's obviously very clearly trying to do that But holy shit the writing is just so bad. This guy sucks Chris whites. You stink

Mm-hmm down straight. I'm glad at least gold frapp got a paycheck for the song that plays at the end. I'm a fan of her Nice. That's like one positive, I guess Just a few random character actors and performers that I like, I guess got a paycheck. And it's funny. I would like, I would watch this again. Yeah. Somebody in. Beer's or something in.

Like, it's fun to make fun of. It's one of those. And just like, yeah. There are some moments that would be like everyone would be cheering out stupid it is or whatever. Yeah, it's good for that. And it's so quick as well. Like you just blink and it's over. It's not even an hour and a half, I don't think.

Easy to get through. Yeah. And I'm normally, I don't know. Normally Blumhouse, they'd normally piss me off way more than this. Like, I thought this was way more entertaining than FNAF and all their latest garbage. Like, this was just the right level for me. I just, I don't know if it's the sci-fi concepts just fumbled so bad. The fact that, like, AI is like the...

Like, that was quick, how quickly we got this AI horror movie. I'm sure it's like just the beginning too. I'm sure we're going to get more and more of that. Because I guess M.3 was kind of going a little bit into that too with the AI like it's toy thing is so advanced where isn't technology scary stuff um i'm just glad i guess we've gone out of that horror around social media stuff i can't remember the name of that fucking incredibly bad horror movie about all about like social media and including all that garbage but Megan is missing at least now it's there's megan is missing there's a bunch of

friended, yeah, there's loads. Dark web. Yeah, dark web. We're grading now. We're like a few steps away from Terminator yet, but we're getting there. We're seeing the evolution in these bad horror films, that's for sure. Two out of ten. With a like.

It was funny. Yeah, I think I actually gave this maybe a two and a half star at a ten with a like. Let me double check that there before. for a... No, one and a half star. Yeah. It's too bad for that. Yeah, yeah.

One and a half star, or I guess, a three out ten. So bad. Blumhouse, I guess you keep doing what you're doing. I'm sure it's probably going to make money too. Yeah. Surprising for me in Blumhouse, because I don't tend to get home with them, even ironically. All right.

Don't let the river beast get you. was my recommendation. Wow, yeah. Did you want to say that? Yeah, how did, like, how did you find this? So there's a pre-tiff thing called Midnight Dankness, hosted by Peter Koppelowski, who does the Midnight Madness programming.

And this is an unofficial, like, it's not officially part of Tiv. It's just Peter's thing. And last year, we didn't make it, but they played hundreds of beavers there last year. Oh, man. This year, that would have been great. They played a film called Local Legends, and then

the sequel Local Legends Bloodbath. And it's a Matt Farley kind of autobiography, where he talks about him and his like weird movie making stuff but it also has the same like quality and

comedic sensibilities as the movies that he makes and it was really interesting and I hadn't seen any of his like real movies I hadn't seen anything like don't let the River Beast get you or whatever and I was looking for a place to start because I was so intrigued by that autobiographical

documentary thing that I was like okay this guy seems pretty funny and so April and Colin from the No Such Thing as a Bad Movie podcast, they're big fans of Matt Farley and April told me that this is a good one.

Don't let the river beast get you. And I was like, well, it's Halloween's coming up. Scary time. Yeah, it's a scary time for a scary river beast. And yeah, it's, I enjoyed it, honestly. It's pretty funny. It was charming. But I will preface, you basically watched it in, well, no, you didn't watch it at that night thing.

No. I didn't watch this with the ideal conditions. Oh, no. I guess is what I'm trying to say. Because I can see basically what you're saying. If I did see this at some kind of midnight movie madness or with a big crowd, I think it could be like five-star kind of territory. I was like the enjoyment you could have with the humor in there. But like at 8 a.m. by myself, it kind of hits a little bit different.

It was, it took a while for me to kind of get what it was going for, to be entertained by it. I was admittedly kind of bored out of my mind for a lot of it. But it is also really quirky and weird and funny. It's kind of like this weird balance of this kind of porn acting. but with like genuinely hilarious, weird dialogue. It's like, oh, that's a, that's a weird phrase you're just like putting in there. And it's like the charm of these random people that clearly aren't experienced actors like doing this bizarre dialogue. Get out my habitat.

Get out of my abode. And just like weird idiosyncrasies with these people and characters. And it is memorable in that sense. And yeah, I would definitely watch it again as far as that is concerned. ideally with a crowd, I think. Yeah, I think, I think this is good with a crowd. I watched it just like doing a watchalong on my Twitch thing. And so I had Twitch chat, which was nice. But yeah, I could, I could definitely see how this would be a lot better like in a theater, in the right type of environment, like in the right type of crowd for other people that are interested in this kind of weird

outsider art. Exactly, yeah. And I was, I was also unsure quite how much of a, like intentional comedy it was gonna be as far as like it's clearly inspired by films like Zat to these old outdated creature features and whatnot which is a I mean a perfect subject to parody and use as a platform for comedy and they do get there but I was more in that beginning section just like what like what are we doing here what is this like you don't really interact with the riverbeast for like 50 minutes and it is like an hour and but it sure it reminds you that it exists in transition areas.

It's got rules. Yeah. It's a man, unironically, don't let the riverbees get you and afraid have better more thought-out rules than Megalopoulos. Like it's clear to follow you can actually understand what's going on. There's like lines that are funny that like a, I wrote down there's characters that are interesting and memorable. Like some of the characters in here are crazy.

They're distinct. Like really distinct. It's kind of like a extreme low budget like Cohen brothers thing. Like this random people just show up. It's like, oh, you just like stole the movie right there with your random dialogue, your random antics, your random quirks. And I don't know, it's fun because for that first half where it just wasn't really jelling with it, it starts just doing things.

You're like, okay, there's more intention to this. There is actually, it's weirdly well shot for how like micro budget it is too. I guess so there's actually like cool shots here and there. Yeah, and where it winds up going, you're like laughing out loud by the end. It's funnier than a lot of comedies, to be honest. Yeah. Especially ones I've seen recently. I mean, this is a comedy.

Like, it knows what it is. Yeah, yeah. And just leaning into that. Yeah, comedy horror is like a great combo. And just the, yeah, where they take it towards the end, the way they wrap it up with these absurd characters and bringing up things like the, the that could be annoying like the idiosyncrasies that are just like too random but they like bring it back round with the the kitty litter stuff and it's like okay that's that's genuinely really funny like you defeat the the zap monster with the with the kitty litter and the he just happens to notice that he has to rehydrate his skin and it's like okay this is like really funny and you're acknowledging like these these rules that you're coming back to and this the absurdism is really kind of like the hook to me like this whole like attitude towards the um he's like a tutor the main

character a disgrace to dood damn tutor this town has ever seen yeah yeah everyone like respects him for that how good he is as a tutor and just like every character's kind of like that with a random exaggerated aspect of their character and yeah that it was it was really the side characters that were stealing the show for me whether it just be like one shot of clearly some random probably real hairdresser, like just delivering a line. And it's like there's something really earnest and fun and charming about that. Yeah, it definitely has a charm. And it's fun to just see someone make a really cheap movie that they obviously enjoyed making

and they enjoyed the finished product of. Like you can see that they love what they're doing. But also at the same time, they're just, you know, doing this on a, shoe string budget, just hiring friends and family, non-actors. Yeah. Like, not a lot of production value at all. Like, you know, just a very basic camera. No color grading, right?

Like. Yeah, like white balance all fucked up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Lighting. Yeah. I mean, there's minimal light in some scenes, but.

A lot of it show outside, yeah. It's, it does. I think. the writing is probably what like helps it out a lot as well like those lines you were talking about yeah definitely it needs to be there since you left town everyone's lost there's wad de vivre like just these random french phrases it's a yeah it's a fun movie or the one that really got me was um lack the graces of a near duels um it's just like what it's so yeah there's something kind of clever about that kind of dialogue coming out of these non-actors. It creates a

interesting tone that's like funny on multiple levels. It's like the dialogue is funny, like objectively, but then the added humor of these random people delivering it's like extra funny. It just feels like a little ramshackle production. It's all yeah, scrappy and silly and like not too high stakes. And I'm shouting out these side characters, but honestly Matt Fowley kind of is the glue. that holds it together, he's, he does deliver a really fun performance that definitely knows what he's doing. Like, the way he's delivering his lines is like so silly and kind of cartoonish. He's like a good person to carry this.

Because it's like fairly long still. It's like a full feature. This isn't like a 60 minute long just like parody of Zat or whatever. It's yeah, they clearly cared about like what they were doing here and genuinely is hilarious at points. What do you think about the music? Um, it's, it was one of the things I guess that was like irritate me. That midi, like super low quality sound, but it's, yeah, exactly. Yeah, outside of the, just midi flashbacks from it, I didn't feel much from, from that side of it. Did you have more of a musical?

What about the River Beast shuffle? Or sorry, the river, what were they call it? River mud shuffle? Ah, I see, yeah. That was like a river mud shuffle. Yeah, that was a moment for sure. Like the, the dude like playing the bucket was cool in that scene. Like, just like offbeat and just like, I would, through that whole scene, I was thinking like, man, I'd love to see what this actually looked like when they were filming it.

Because that would also be funny. Yeah. They all had to learn like choreography. And it wasn't complex, but they were all doing it. Yeah. And like I was reading about it. They filmed the whole thing in 12 days. which is fun, respect.

Yeah, it's about right for what they're doing with it, but it is, God, it's niche. Like, you kind of already have to have appreciation of these like old ass horror movies and, yeah. I would like everyone at home, including you, Alex, to do an experiment. Okay. Go on Spotify.

Okay. And search your own name and the word poop. Okay. And see what the first result is. Poop. What do you see? Okay, I've searched that. My mommy farted by Poop Man in Fartland.

What do you get? You don't see the Alex Poop song at the top? Maybe my second name is throwing it off. If I just put Alex Poop. Oh, yeah, just your first name. Oh, okay. Oh, there it is, the Alex Poop song by the Alex Poop song by the... poop song by the odd man who sings about poop you could be and then what a legend look at

the album art it's the guy's poop song oh it's Matt what the hell so one of the things he discussed in his documentary is how he's like gamed the Spotify search algorithm and so he's he's written and and produced like 40,000 songs So he's like, you know what? I think if people will just search their name and like poop or pee, like they'll just be the first thing to come up. And then he'll write songs about celebrities

just like, if somebody searches a celebrity's name and I'll just be there. And so like literally it has like 40,000 different songs of just trying to game the algorithm, the search results. And they're all very basic and hilarious. Like you can listen to them. They're funny.

And one of them is just like, Jeremy Renner, you are a talented actor. You seem like a cool guy And like He's such a character I love every one of these album covers Is a different like picture of him in front of his toilet Yeah, in the same room

And many of these are like under different Artist names And so he he talked about like His thought process he's like well yeah Like if if I only get like a hundred Streams per track but I have 40,000 tracks That I'm making good money So that's like his day job, I guess.

I guess it's a part of it. Like, I don't know. Yeah. He's like pumping out these songs. That's kind of ingenious. Because yeah, he's got like just on the odd man who sings about poop, puke, and pee, it's what, 96,000 monthly listeners? Yeah, some of these songs have hundreds of thousands of plays.

Yeah, that's like 10 times as much as my music. Yeah, with, I need a lot of toilet paper to clean the poop in my butt as half a million plays, you know? Wow, I love that. That is respect. And you can tell, by the way, I mean, he's got confidence. Like, you think Megalopolis is confident. This is real confidence, right?

Earned confidence. Yeah, he's a weirdo. I like the character names too. Just the quirkiness of it, Ito Hootkins. Yeah, like the, referring to the River Beast as R.B. and then having the same initials as RB. Like that really tickles me. That kind of just stupid wordplay.

And it does a bunch of that kind of stuff. Mm-hmm. He's drinking a lot of coffee milk throughout the film. Yeah, what was that about? He just, there's a scene in the documentary where he just talks about how much he loves coffee milk. Oh, so he just loves it. It wasn't even like a joke.

He just loves drinking. I mean, it's difficult to tell how much of it is a joke. Because like in this, in this, it's called local legends, by the way, 2013. In this autobiographical documentary thing, like it's very clearly also a joke, but it's also, it just seems true. Like, it seems like he's just making a joke out of reality in a sense. Yeah. And that's what I was connecting with is the absurdism. Like at the wedding where the rival guy is just like, here you, you.

hear ye. And it's like, yeah, all this just dumb shit like that. They just catch you off guard. I loved that character that just whips out. Man does not exist for work alone when he's like just chilling. So funny and weird. Another weird, quirky thing about this guy is he'll just like post his phone number. And it's like his real phone number.

He's like, yeah. You know, a lot of people are more secure about those types of things. but I figure if I just do that, then people will talk about it. And look, here I am talking about it. And so people will just, like, text him or call him, and then he'll, like, write a song about them. Wow. Okay.

Wait, so is he, like, on Facebook, Twitter? Where's your sharing? He is on Twitter. But he'll, like, share his phone number within, like, songs. He literally just put it in the local legends movie. He, like, just put it on the screen. He's like, yeah, you can call me. Okay.

He sounds like a character. Yeah. Honestly though, I think the best joke in the movie was the Killers Moon soldier joke. That one really did get me. Because by that point, that side character, you're familiar with him, you're finding him funny. When he's like this whole sacrificial soldier thing, I've always just wanted to be known as Killers Moon. He's taken out. And then like it's returned to like five minutes later, then Matt Farley, doesn't even say his name.

He's just like, Killers Moon sacrificed himself. It's like, so good. Like he knew. So, yeah, he really knew. And he was, he knew, like, he knew him so well that he'd have to be known as Killers Moon posthumously. Yeah, I like the picnic babes. I like the awkward, awkward dancing. That was a funny, yeah, that's the kind of stuff mocking the, you know, the, the tropes of your Zats and whatnot is always the picnic babes and multiple characters.

being hung up on that and bringing it up is a funny thing and the the statue reveal at the end as well it's like really funny to me oh my god that was the best what a great concept I feel like it gets funnier as it goes along it definitely does um because actually it builds on itself more than you think um I don't know you see enough like bad movies there's like different tiers of them and reasons for why they're funny and this is one of the more unique ones I've seen as far as like man You're getting, you're getting so much of this like just right. But you're creating this unique tone with like, man, the writing normally isn't normally this funny with these like micro budget movies. And it's not normally why they take off.

You know, it's normally like a room or whatever where it's so bad it's good. But this knows how bad it is and somehow makes it good through that without being annoying in like a self-aware Deadpool way. I love that about it. Yeah. Yeah, it's very, um, pure and unpretentious. Yeah. Like, it's, it's okay with being what it is and it knows what it is. And it likes that it is.

Yeah, it's very like quaint in that way. And like, it's got an awesome final line that we didn't let the river beast get us. Such a dumb, just like inverse of the title. Like, okay, that's the, that's the funniest way you could have ended this right here. But shout out to Sparky, the Investigator. I think he might have stole the show, actually. I thought that he was bringing it extra that investigator character with his physical performance.

He was really hamming it up and chewing the scenery in the most fun way possible. I love whenever he was involved. Yeah, every character's great. Like the fucking the girl he's tutoring, just her unwavering support of everyone around her, Like, just completely unconditional, just like, she's there. For like no reason. Yeah.

But that's just her character. The fucking dancing girl with a kitty litter, just popping. That whole stuff was hilarious with that, that the roommate guy who's like busking in the park. He's like, well, I've never made so much money. Bussing just like on a path in the middle of a field. Yeah, yeah. Just like the prime traffic area. Yeah.

And like three people will give him like a. dollar and he's like this the most money I've ever made who would have thought adding dancing would be so profitable yeah more more people need to check out Matt Farley's stuff because I can see I can see the appeal for sure and I'm glad I've found this and I will be checking out his other films so does he do directing as well because this was directed by Charles Roxburgh according to IMDB I guess he wrote on it too. Yeah, Matt writes a lot of the stuff

and stars and a lot of the stuff and he's credited as directing local legends which was that documentary thing I was talking about and I don't know why but there's no IMDB page for Local Legends Bloodbath which was like the sequel that I saw at the thing but I don't know why. Yeah, and it was just on YouTube too

so extremely low barrier to entry it was free to watch in the UK You can watch Don't Let the River Beast Get You on YouTube. Yeah. I liked the intro too with that old ass guy that's just talking about the rules with the red flash. When the River Beast is near, it flashes red twice. It's the rule they establish. Jethl was actually kind of funny how they use it.

It's scary. If you want to cover your eyes. Oh yeah. It's perfect. Like I was just, I was like yelling every time that happened. Oh, the River Beast! Yeah, yeah. It becomes like a good joke.

And it's also like a funny, they just show like a basic shot of the river and then just do the red flash. Implied there's something there even there's just like nothing but that's what that is a funny recurring joke that definitely goes better as it goes on. I'm in a cage man. Yeah. Yeah, it's something everybody should see. There's a Blu-ray. Let's see where it is. Oh, really?

Yeah. I forgot where I found it. I guess gold ninja video website. Okay. And they have a lot of Matt Farley Blurays on the website. And a lot of them are limited to like 500 copies, so I snagged a bunch of them, as in I snagged one of each of the ones that weren't sold out. Yeah. Hell yeah. So if you like Blu-rays, fucking get that shit.

Yeah, it's a nice little hidden gem, a little jewel buried in there. You know where to look? It's true outsider art. Definitely. Yeah, I want to watch this with the crowd. I feel like that would be amazing. Yeah, I actually, I looked it up, and it looks like there are screenings of this that continue to happen. Like, there's one happening in Austin on like the sixth.

There's one happening in L.A. in October. I wonder if they do it in London. I mean, you should... Yeah, to keep an eye up for that. Contact your local indie theater and make a suggestion. Damn. It could happen. Okay.

All right. Yeah, I just, I appreciated how it avoided the, you know, the Burdermic 2 problem. Of like, you're just trying too hard to be in on the joke. It's like the perfect level that you know what you are. You know what's funny about this. You know what is limited. this. Yeah, really cute.

As I say, as far as a racing is concerned, I would give it two and a half stars, probably, like right down the middle. I did watch it in a really strange, like, not ideal way that I don't think anyone who loves them if you would agree is the ideal way to watch it, but I really respect a lot about it, especially in hindsight. I'm like, yeah, do you want to revisit it in a group or later in the day with some booze would be good as well. Yeah.

It's a good alcohol movie. Yeah. Yeah, because when I've been to the movie madnesses before, that's always... It's just a different vibe when it's like midnight. Everyone's already a little bit tired, a little bit loopy, had a few drinks in them. Yeah, that's what it's for. A little crispy. A little bit sticky.

Yeah. Yeah, check this movie out, six out of ten. Loved it. I'm going to be checking out Matt Farley. these other stuff. We've found an uteur. Definitely. Thanks April. Yeah. Good chat.

No thanks, Colin. Fucking poser. Yeah, man. It's a problem. All right, question time. Hell yeah. Let's do some questions then. From the Sardonicast community. Head over to the suggestion thread. Over on the

subreddit, we can leave questions for future episodes just like Ghostface George did. I see that Adam included not like us in his Spotify playlist, and I have to know, what are your opinions on the music of Kendrick Lamar? I'm a big fan myself. Where do you stand? Oh, was that a part of the question?

Or was that you saying it? That was me saying that bit. That's my opinion. What's the Kendrick take? Yeah, well, so I, what was it? Pimp a butterfly got a 10 from, from Fantano, yeah. Anthony Fantano?

It is a 10, not a 10 album. So I checked that one out a while ago, and I was kind of like, eh, you know, I wasn't like huge into it. Maybe I should revisit it. It's a grower, because I had that same reaction, but I've gone back to it again and again and again, and I find something new every time. I think that's a perfect album. I think it was a little bit of me, like, getting used to his voice also.

Yeah, I get that. Because it is a weirdly kind of, like, high, pitched and like even kind of like soft voice for like that type of hip hop for me yeah yeah i get that but i like weird voices i mean music same a lot of my favorite artists have like really atypical uh performance voices yeah same so i love about david burn but yeah when that uh that drake beef happened and I kind of like mildly dipped my toes in it and then just having that song being so much a part of like pop culture and kind of it being something that was inescapable it really grew on me and I was like you know what this is a great track I like this track a lot so I think I might revisit some of

Kendrick's other stuff at some point but music for me I have to like be ready for it I can't just force it and decide like oh yeah I have to be on your own terms. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Mr. Morale as well is wonderful. Yeah, those are my two that I go back to regularly. Pimp Butterfly in Mr. Morale. Yeah, those disc tracks are wild, though. I actually like the really scary five-minute one, the best out of that drop. Have you heard about this South Park collab thing with him?

They're apparently making a movie. with Kendrick. They're doing some kind of project, some musical together, the South Park dudes. I did not hear about that, I don't think. Yeah, I've read about it a few times. That could be interesting. That sounds bizarre. That's a wacky combo.

Because he's, I love Kendri, but I don't really associate him too much with humor outside of these newer, I don't know. Okay. It's quite serious a lot of the time, I feel like, but, um. I'm reading this. article. What do you see? I'm stuck in development hell. Okay, I saw, I saw a really interesting sentence and now I have to read backwards to make sure that the sentence is in context. Hold on. Just give me a minute. Okay, okay. So it's apparently a live action comedy. Right. Like a musical.

This article's from so long ago. What the fuck. Okay, I need a newer one. What year? This article, yeah, from April 2024, never mind. That's this year. It says the film is slated to open July 4th, 2025 distributed by Paramount and the interesting sentence for me is that apparently Vernon Chapman writ wrote a bunch of it who I fucking love oh really yeah so that makes me even way more excited for it the PFFR guy one of them I'm just thinking about the the South Park dudes filmography so forth I didn't see the orgasma or whatever but yeah The other ones have been good. The South Park movie's good. The Team America is funny. The Book of Mormon is really good. I saw that on stage. That was really fun, funny.

So yeah, this could be awesome, actually. Yeah, we don't have a lot of details about this. So, who knows? Yeah, for a July 25 thing, that seems. Yeah. Maybe we'll get a trailered soon. Hell yeah. Yeah. Fuck. Vernon. Nobody, nobody even talks about Vernon Chapman. That's the most interesting part for me. But he's not famous, I guess. Yeah. I don't know how many people are. What writers do people even know? You know, like a sorkin, I guess.

But even then, that's not a household name, like a Tarantino or whatever. It's one of the most like underappreciated roles, I feel like. True. So it's not glossy or front facing, I guess. It's more like back end. Yeah. So you don't have the big, you're not the face of it. Yeah.

Representative I-86 says recently there's been this revisionist history on movies where people are going back and saying that this movie was always good. The Star Wars prequels, Prometheus, The Amazing Spider-Man. Do you think that this stems from a genuine love or it's just a prop-up hate for the new stuff? This is like a cycle I feel like I've seen for a while now and I remember twigging on. In relation to the Zelda games, I think it was, where I first kind of saw this. this cycle going where it's it's called the Zelda cycle there's like a name for it, a term

for it at this point and I feel like it applies to a lot of media now but for those unaware the Zelda cycle is the phenomenon where a 3D Zelda is initially widely praised and a vocal minority perpetuates the idea that the game is bad and then the game goes back to being good after the next 3D Zelda game

is released and then the cycle repeats I feel like there's a lot of that yeah who's been gassing up Prometheus until there's like a new alien. I feel like that's just like it appeared out of nowhere. I feel like everyone hated for Mietia. So now there's like a little rise of that,

the whole prequel thing, that's true, another kind of correct observation. I mean, I've stayed pretty consistent in the sense that like there's a lot that I hate about it, but there's some things I like about it. Yeah, same. It's more just like general attitudes, I guess, because it definitely feels like a phenomena

where the new thing comes out and then the old thing that used to hate is another thing you should like. Yeah, I mean, it might just, I don't know. It's now it's nostalgic. I don't know how many people are like changing their opinions, but there's something that happens on the internet where people are more likely to share their opinion on something

if they feel like it's a safe opinion to have, which is, I think, one of the most pathetic, fucking cowardly disgusting things, but it's just something that people do. Which is why, you know, if like everyone's dogpiling on a, someone on Twitter, everybody will be like, oh, and here's this other thing from 10 years ago, and this is what I hated about them. It's disgusting. Like, you're doing it because you feel

safe to do it now. You should have said it when, like, if you actually had this issue, you would have said it for it. Yeah, they come out of the woodbook. Now you're doing it because you have the the green go light, right? So I don't know if many people are like shifting their opinions or like creating new opinions, but I think that just more people are expressing things when they feel safe to do so, when they feel like it's not as controversial of a thing. to say, which I think is disgusting and people are fucking cowards. So where do these narratives come from? It's like, probably is these little vocal minorities and it just like catches in a

certain way or things are old enough to be nostalgic and we're such a nostalgic society. And I always go back to that Frank Zappa quote of the smaller and smaller cycles of nostalgia. It also kind of feels like that a little bit too. It's like we're obsessed with remaking the same thing over and over again in smaller cycles. I'm not making too much new stuff to be obsessed with. So it's like, yeah, this like weird snake eating at same tail bullshit. Yeah. So I think a good chunk of people did like the original Star Wars,

but were very quiet when the dominant voice was the red litter media reviews and then decided to speak up when the new Star Wars came out. And it's just like, just say what you mean. Just say your opinions. Just say your opinions. Stop worrying about whether or not it's a safe opinion to have. Because, yeah, the prequel. The prequel resurgence seems to be, yeah, direct response to the Disney stuff.

And it is even though the discussion when that came out was not quite as inflammatory as the current Disney stuff. But everyone hated the prequels in the early 2000s. That was like the joke. Everyone was disappointed by them. But it's just this constant revisionist. history of that kind of thing. And you know what? Pink Eye 5 has something that kind of tangentially relates to this. The new alien has taken a lot of fleck for its seeming indulgence of fan service and

member berries. Yet many were excited about the member berries and fan service of Deadpool and Wolverine. My question for you guys is how much does fan service matter to you both good and bad and when does it go overboard? Yeah, it's becoming more and more of, I guess, an intrusive issue. for me something that wasn't an issue maybe 10 years ago is now something that like will ruin movies for me basically the but the only thing it might have is reverence for something old and it's like that's the member berries is the the spine of the project that i just can't

deal with that anymore i find yeah when that's all it's offering especially yeah and it's i guess i get torn when it's like if what you love is like a universe and it's showing you, I don't know, ships or designs or something from a universe, what is that line between just playing in the sandbox that was created with the universe and being like egregiously, look, it's that thing you remember? Isn't it great that we're, those warm feelings you get from that thing you remember thing? And I feel like, yeah, there are multiple different intensities of examples of that. But I'm just kind of over it now. Like it just doesn't work on me anymore and I just find it quite a hollow approach to films.

I haven't seen Debula Mooverin yet and I'm going to at some point. I'm sorry to hear that. I'm sure you're very excited. Yeah, I just feel I want to know how far it goes with that stuff. No, I'm not even curious anymore. Fuck this shit. Don't get tricked. You already got tricked into Megalopoulos.

You're going to get tricked again? You're going to get fucking duped again? I will enjoy it more than megalopolis. I would put money down on that. Even if I get more angry. That's a low bar. It's a very low bar. I mean, it must be like the biggest, it's not quite inside out too, but it's up there,

one of the bigger movies of the year. It's like the only thing everyone's swarmed out to go see, which is cool, the one Marvel movie of the year. Yeah, I guess. Does that supposed to mean something now? Like now that they've scaled back, they're like, oh, there's only one a year. Now it's, now it matters. Probably, I guess, the inverse approach.

It's all shit. It's all shit. It's fucking cancer. Yeah, but money. It makes so much money. Everyone loves Orion. Can't get enough Ryan. I don't know why.

Yeah, I don't have the answers for you, I'm afraid. I really don't. I drink his gin. That's it. Is it all right? I mean, it's a good gin to like mix with, like, uh, cranberry juice and like soda, like a splash of cranberry and then fill it up with soda. Or if you're in the South, splash of cranberry, splash of sweet tea, Milo's sweet tea,

and then fill it up with soda. So not too overpowering with puritanicals. Yeah, it's good for that. It's not something I would like drink straight, really. Right. But it's like a, it's a good dependable gin. There's this, I still have this on my desk. It's sitting in front of me right now.

There's this little cardboard card that comes with his gin. And they haven't fixed the grammatical issues with it. And it's just so annoying. It's a quote. It's a quote from Ryan Reynolds and it says, it's just vodka if it's wish were granted. But the first it's has no apostrophe. The second it's has an apostrophe.

it's both wrong it's just vodka if it is wish were granted and they haven't fixed it and they're still doing this like what the fuck the gin's all right I remember seeing a bottle when I was in Canada

like a grotesquely large bottle of it with his face and those errors on there it's funny it still hasn't been fixed they must have made so many of those I guess to hide in the background of red notice and it's probably I haven't seen it obviously I haven't seen it

but I bet you there's a Jin joke in Deadpool 3. It's probably in his contract that it has to be brought up. There was a Deadpool bottle of aviation gin. Really? Like Deadpool's on it. They had a Deadpool 3, Deadpool Wolverine branding for the gin. It was the same gin.

God. It was so hard on the branding for it. It's just everywhere. Yeah, I don't know about that. He's a money man. He's making a lot of money. He's a very mega money man. Let's do this one from Metal Gear Gaz

Hello you handsome devils As we all know We're living in the age of Hollywood Pumping out more and more remakes and legacy sequels Other than the occasional gem like Top Gun Maverick Which I don't love but is leagues better than the original They're mostly unoriginal cash grabs That are forgotten about in a few months

We just had alien and soon we'll have The Crow and Beetlejuice 2 As well just to name some examples The Crow looks hilarious by the way In the past decade or so It's not out yet I think it is out now think that like it bombed so hard like uh then nobody knew it got released yeah i think in the time of

them writing this comment and uh like it's come out on digital ready and uh oh wow another lion's gate by the way oh was that oh my god they're screwed and they really they are fucked they're um in the past decade or so the video game industry has started doing this as well but it seems audiences are much more receptive to this idea when it comes to video games for example, the success of the recent God of War legacy sequels, the Final Fantasy seven remakes and the Last of Us Part 1 remake on the PS5. While there may not be an objective answer, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts as to why video game audiences are not as opposed to remakes slash legacy sequels as moviegoers are. Does it have to do with how exponential

video game technology has grown since its inception? I know it's a long winder question, but I've had this in my mind for a while and would love to hear your thoughts. Thank you all for the amazing films you've exposed me to throughout the years. and would have flown under the radar otherwise, cheers. Yeah, I mean, I guess the implication with a video game is that, like, it feels a bit more justified because it's like, oh, you can do better textures, at the very least. Yeah.

It seems, I don't know, like Resident Evil 2 remake pops into my head. It's, it doesn't feel like a soulless replica of something we've already had. It feels like, oh, this is what they, would have made if they could have done that originally. It's like a, almost like a spiritual successor. It's not replacing it. It's like an extension of it almost. Which I guess just doesn't apply to the medium of film because like its age isn't necessarily an indicator.

It isn't gimped by its age necessarily like filmmaking. There are fantastic films from the 40s or whatever. It's not held back by technology in quite the same way. interactive media is with like yeah you got to build an engine you're limited by i had like a crazy stat that i think it was that nes yes like if you added up every single game that was released on it it was still like it was like 400 megabytes every single game ever can fit it on your fucking telephone so that seems to be the biggest effect to me whereas like yeah camera technology and visual effects and whatnot has obviously improved over the decades but it's still quite

It's still a series of moving images instead of like an interactive piece of software that you're, that does feel different to me. And I haven't seen actually The Last of Us is more of a kind of egregious example because it looked fine to me before that. But for the most part, I feel like video game remakes are way more justified. Yeah, that's the implication. And there are exceptions to both mediums. Yeah, definitely. But like bringing up the recent God of War legacy sequels and stuff like that, again, they they left the franchise for a really long time. Like after God of World Three Greek series came back, it reinvented itself, looked different, sounded different, was stylistically different.

That justifies its existence to me. Like there's clearly like something they want to say a new, it's different. It's not just remaking the first God of War. Yeah, it just doesn't bug me in the same way it does with a You know like Spike Lee remaking Carosar movies does you know, there's just something inherently like oh reinterpreting Yeah, in the same way he did with old boy, I'm sure it'll be great Hmm, this is an interesting one from BBD 4116 When was the last time a movie slash show slash any media inspired you to try some food or drink that was featured in it? Like many others, I was introduced

used to white Russians because of the Big Lobowski made my own version of riot juice from. It's always sunny. Yeah, I agree with the white Russians. That's the only reason I ever tried them is because of the dude. I need to have one again, actually. I haven't had one in ages, but I've always wanted to try the watermelon soaked in vodka from Goodfellers. I don't know if that would be good or not, but that always looked alluring to me. I haven't taken the bullet.

It could be. It could be kind of yummy, kind of interesting. I ordered marmalade after the Paddington films. Oh really? Did you not add it before? Yeah. Oh, marmalade's good. My nan makes a good marmalade.

Yeah, that was what user Alme Dioli replied saying, finally found and had orange marmalade this year after the Paddington movies. Truly was the most delicious thing in the world. It is good. It's damn yummy. Uh, rosemary's baby made me make a vodka blush. Oh, nice. Yeah, I always think about like animated movies.

I always make like ramen and buns and things like so, so yummy. Yeah, I ordered ramen for my tampo poe watching. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's a must. Yeah. That was the whole reason I watched that movie It was my new obsession Yeah, you're right

Tempapa was a big one for me I drank I drank Guinness for Aquaman too Wow Okay Sometimes it just feels right Yeah I like drinking it when I want to drink like a meal You know it's like

This is like drinking bread or something It's like Quite hearty food drink I still haven't had it in the proper Irish like I'm told that if you actually go to Ireland I have a proper Guinness is something else

Same entirely so I'll do that one day Let's do it let's go Fuck yeah Got any film festivals in Ireland? They must do Just for that I'll do it I'll do a quick trip

I mean I don't think many people would blame you Long flight. I'll be there for one evening, drink some Guinness and leave. The hungover Guinness flight back would be interesting. Yeah, I wonder, I wonder what the most recent one is.

I don't know. It'll come to me later. Yeah, I just go to animated movies. Yeah. But yeah. Noodles, white Russians, vodka, watermelons. That's all pops in my head.

Oh, um, Mr. McDon has a query. Are there any films you would reconsider, well you would consider re-reconding for the podcast because you had a new view on it or different things you feel you could say about it that weren't touched upon in the original episode? Speaking of the Big Lebowski, that's kind of the one I'm thinking of this work. I remember not, I feel like I could have said way more about that or in more detail or something about that one that stuck in my head It was like, could have, could have explain that better or what are that better or going in with more detail for a movie that like I love that much.

I felt like, I could have done better there. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's interesting that we talked about her like well before the AI stuff was taken off. Yeah, true. It's one of those, like, if I hadn't recommended it already, I would have done it recently. Yeah, definitely. Maybe, maybe we'll be due for another watch of Jean Dillemont at some point.

True, yeah. Yeah, I, it's another one of those movies that's kind of stuck with me, despite my reaction to that first watch and that frustration that came from it, but I don't know, it has lingered. There's definitely something there. Yeah, I don't know when or if. there will ever be a recommendation for a film we've already watched, because we haven't done that as far as I'm aware. No, there's none that I feel like were, did it so dirty.

One that we've already covered, I mean. Yeah, exactly, that it would justify that when there's so many we haven't seen or haven't talked about already. Seems like a ways to do that. But, yeah, that would be my pick otherwise. How about we wrap up on this one from past confusion? Let's do it. Three, two, three, four.

In the last episode, well, this is actually from a thread ago or something, so this won't be accurate. But you said you're fed up of Hotel California due to hearing it too many times and because it's not a forever song. Which songs do you boy's view as forever songs, songs that you can hear as many times and you still love them. For me, if I had to pick a song, you could hear in a lot of places that I still feel love for is Feel Good Inc by Gorillas. Keep up the good work on the podcast. Yeah, stickiness, the forever song. If it ain't Hotel California. That's another dude.

Big Lobowski thing, isn't it? Like, it hates the Eagles. Man, yeah. There's a few of these for me. The song by Joe Strummer called Johnny Appleseed is like a timeless. Oh, this song just sounds like it's always existed. This is like a beautiful timeless little classic as well as, um, rumors by Fleetwood Mac.

It's like obvious as hell, but it's true. How the fuck they made that album and gave it that stickiness. Every song is perfect. It's like a perfect album. Like every generation like in my family like enjoys that album. Yeah, it just brings everyone together. Nice. Yeah.

What about you? I guess I'm scrolling through my playlist here, the ones that stick out to me. Are you That Somebody by Alea? I think that's a banger. I have not gotten sick of that. Drunk Drivers Killer Whales by Car Seat Headrest. I have not gotten sick of that. Titanium featuring Sia by David Geta.

Yeah, there's some on this playlist that I could imagine like it leaving at some point, but there's definitely ones that stick out to me of like, okay, I haven't gotten sick of this in this latest. No Children by the Mountain Goats. Roses by Outcast. Yeah, those are the ones. that stick out to me the most?

Oh, I feel like a, um, in rainbows as well by Radiohead. That's a big one for me. I get around by the Beach Boys. Mm, yeah, some Beach Boys in there. I've really got to delve more into them. I've never given the Beach Boys a proper listen. Yeah, more like Bitch Boys. Time straight.

Man. Any more here, or are we done? I think we're done. I am. I'm fading. I'm, uh... Well, you did watch Megalopolis today. Normally able to hold it together, but I feel like my, my, uh, my brain is, is goop.

I feel like I've just gone into the megalopolis future and, uh, I don't know. I don't know if I like what I saw. So, uh, I guess it's my wreck, huh? It would be your wreck. It is my wreck. And, um, I know, I guess it'll be out of October now, right? Um, I think so. So, yeah.

Is it? Hold on. So this episode is releasing on the, we'll still be in October when the next one. Oh, okay, cool. It'll be October 28th, public. In that case, I want to do a movie called Possum. I haven't actually seen it yet, but it's 2018 Possum, Matthew Holness, obscure psychological horror movie with, um. Yeah, I haven't seen it, so I've just been recommended it a few times, and it's seen a British horror movie.

Seems like my kind of thing. Okay. It's on my watch list already, but I don't know anything about it, as is every movie. Yeah. Sometimes it's interesting to keep it that way. All right, if you don't want to be spoiled for Possum, P-O-S-U-M-2018 film, watch it before the next episode. These episodes come out every two weeks. You can listen to them early by going to Sardonicast.com.

Sign up for premium. It's only $2 a month. Also, patreon.com slash sardonicast. Also give us t-shirt ideas. What do you want? Do it. What do you want from us? What do you want?

What do you want from us? I guess that's it. This will be my last recording in Atlanta. And I'm on the road. Damn. Man. Moving, man. It sucks.

That has to be done sometimes. Yeah, this is my third move in three years. Dude. It sucks. I hate it. That fucking sucks. Yeah, yeah. Oof.

All right, thanks for listening to everybody. Happy Shrek 5. Thanks, everybody, mate. Bye.