Sardonicast - Sardonicast 176: Joker: Folie à Deux, Butt Boy

Episode Date: November 11, 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 Joker: Folie à Deux 52:41 Butt Boy 1:17:05 Questions 1:58:02 Outro + recommendation

Three, two, one. I'm de joker baby. That was a quote from but boy. I'm Adam from your movie sucks. This is Sardana cast. And I'm Alex from I, H.E. And I'm going to go with, It's a fart!

Oh, yes. I'm such a child I mean it's a good line A really good performance too Yeah honestly I'm that child Okay Yeah so we watched

A couple movies The big one the movie of the year Yeah so What were your expectations for Joker Before anybody saw it Like if you were to just judge it based on the trailer Or even the concept man god where to even begin i thought making a sequel was strange with how that first movie felt like a

i don't know a capsule on its own um but obviously it made so much money there was like an obligated nature of we you have to have a sequel to this right we have to expand after the story somehow and uh i don't i thought like the production in the trailer looked interesting there were some good shots it seemed to be extending some of the, you know, that sadness, that griminess from that first movie. And I thought, I don't know, this, honestly, the Harley Quinn angle was what was interesting to me, because I don't think that character has really been done right in cinema anyway. And I thought the casting of Lady Gaga was interesting and thought there was some potential there, but maybe like a more serious down-to-earth interpretation of the character.

And maybe there was some angle they'd find there. But then, yeah, hearing about the jukebox musical angle and the courtroom stuff is where I started getting more like, okay, how's this going to work? I was kind of concerned that the joke about that first Joker movie obviously is that it's wearing Scorsese's influence on its sleeve to such a degree where it kind of feels like two of those movies combined as its backbone, as its skeleton. And that gives it this boost. So I was just wondering. So what are they going to do? What two movies are they going to smash together for? fully ado to try and capture the lightning in the bottle again.

But what I wasn't expecting, I guess, was the contempt for the audience just like, no, we're going to do whatever we want to do. We have total freedom. And we literally do not care what the audience thinks. And it's just about what Todd Phillips wants to do with a Joker sequel. Yeah, what about you? What was your expectations for following? a do. Folly.

Uh, duh. Adieu. Duh. Yeah, well, I'm currently more interested in Todd Phillips's career than I ever have been, and not because I think that he's making good movies, but because this is so weird, just him deciding that he wanted to do this. Like, the director of the hangover all of a sudden deciding, like, I'm an artist, and I'm going to do things.

my way, especially with complete creative control and that high of a budget and this being a sequel. It's funny that he decided to do this. And it's what, like, there's some people that connected with this movie. There's the odd person that exists that liked Joker Folly.

Duh. But my impression is that no matter what, anyone thinks that they get out of it, no matter what deeper meaning anyone interprets from this. I'm just going to take a wild guess and assume that it wasn't what Todd Phillips was thinking. Like, I don't think anybody fucking knows what the hell this movie was trying to be. People have their interpretations, sure.

And some of them are kind of fun or interesting, like the idea that it's supposed to be a fuck you to Joker fans or something. that's kind of funny I don't know if I'm convinced in any particular way I just think that this is a case of Todd Phillips being weird and maybe not

even understanding what he was trying to do himself or because yeah when you're first big hit is literally just copy paste king of comedy except it's Joker with the spring thing of taxi driver yeah well his first big hit in this genre I guess.

Mm-hmm. Then him trying to follow it up and being like, I'm going to do this instead, the jukebox musical. I'm gonna sandbag it. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I hate Joker now. I hate that it was so successful.

Is that what he was even saying? Like, I don't even know. Well, I don't know. That's what I'm saying. It's difficult to read because the film is not only like kind of thematically repatitive with that first movie, but it's also like all over the place with what it's doing. Because you would think a movie that's trying to reject the idea of like, being a franchise superhero movie and being in the Batman universe and that kind of thing,

wouldn't also have like sprinklings of, oh, if you're a comic fan paying attention, there's actually the origin story of a character. Yeah, like, I don't get that kind of thing. And I was like joking to myself like towards the end, like, oh yeah, kill a crox here to like break Joker out of Arkham. Like there's something funny about it that way. And the whole sandbaggy nature is like, what actually we're trying to say here with these characters? because I said I was kind of excited for the Lady Gaga Harley Quing character and how they were going to handle that.

But I wasn't expecting, you know, such an on the nose sort of, oh, she's kind of written to be the audience of the first Joker movie. And like the whole movie kind of being this post-mortem on Joker, I kind of like as a concept or a theme. But the way it's written is so on the nose. It's crazy. It's like, yeah, what is your intent with this? Do you mind if I read this little paragraph? Please. Because I found this crazy about this movie and the success of the first Joker.

Look. According to Insiders, the success of Joker 2019 and the studio's call for a successor allowed director Todd Phillips to have nearly full artistic control over this sequel. This reportedly got to the point when no one could get through to him. He called it a Warner movie and distanced himself from DC Studios as much as possible. The DC logo appears only at the end of the movie. Ignored the creative input of DC Studio head. James Gunn and Peter Safran, I would only talk to Warner Bros. CEO's David DeLucah and Pamela Adby. Phillips also resisted attempts by Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zazelavs to move filming from L.A. to

London, which have reduced costs by 20% and refused to have the film test screened, making the Venice Film Festival the first time an audience saw the Finnish film, where it garnered mostly negative reviews. Although Gunn voiced as support for the film online, both he and Safran did not attend the American. Premiere. So that's a really interesting bit of context to me as well as like when you read the paychecks, the three leads got, well, the two leads and the director, Phillips, where I think Phillips and Joaquin got 20 million each and a Garga got like 12. And just that combined is the budget of the first movie, which was around 50 million. This one's budget was $190 million. And while I think a lot of it looks good and the production is decent, I don't know if it's three times as impressive as that. that first movie. In fact, I think it misses a lot of the things that that first movie actually did get right, even though I didn't love it in totality. It feels three times as long. Yeah. So what do you think that, how do you think that spins it as far as like, that's kind of what we're usually championing, right? It's like a director to get this level

of control and for a budget this big. Yeah, but if they have to be a talented direct, like they have to have like an actual vision. Like, the first movie was just copy-paste king of comedy. And there's things about it that worked. I thought it was decent. It's pretty good. But, like, there wasn't much of a vision there other than, but what if it was Joker? Right?

Like, that's a, that reminds me of that, that criticism from, uh, fuck, what's a folding ideas when he was talking about Doug Walker. Remind me? Talking about how it was like the extent of his creativity was like, what if Batman fought Mario or some shit? That's essentially what the first Joker is, is like, but what if I did this, but it was a Joker? Right? Yeah. So giving full creative control and like $200 million to that guy, I, you know, maybe he could have used some notes. Yeah.

Maybe he could have used some notes. I was trying to remember it. There was like a controversial aspect to the 2019 movie that kind of was a little fart by the end of it. Like that before the film came out, there was all this talk about like, oh, it's going to incite violence, it's going to create these riots and stuff like that. I don't know if that is part of the commentary of the film because that is kind of built into, it's all about this like, there's two ideas of what a, the human being, Arthur Fleck and

his shadow that is the Joker and what that what that means what that inspires is he the Joker is it a concept is it a result of the mental health problems in the country and yeah it's kind of similar to it was already kind of implied and explored in that first movie to me and that's what was there was the strength of it was basically Joaquin Phoenix carrying this film on his back with a very good performance give him full creative control well I think he did I think this idea for this film came to him in a dream or something I was reading in like the trivia and they wanted it to be like a stage show at one point no a Joaquin what I think it was like involved with some some part of the

story or I don't know he was definitely like a big player in that kind of thing and like Lady Gaga releasing a complimentary album as well at the same time it's like everyone I don't know I it's a really odd film so I was intrigued by that and honestly for the first 10 15 minutes I was like huh if we can keep this up, maybe I might like this. It opens on kind of a, an animated sequence, like an ode to the old WB animated stuff, which was like kind of fun and creative and new. And it felt honestly a lot more ambitious than the original Joker movie, but it didn't have that skeleton of Scorsese movies to fall back on when things didn't work.

Yeah. So after those 15 minutes, it started quickly kind of falling apart for me. It just had like no focus or momentum. Yeah. The first film was a lot more focused. It was also an interesting character study. There wasn't really that much to pull from in this film in terms of like character or motivation even. A lot of it just hinged on.

I guess the outcome of this trial. That doesn't matter. Because like like even let's let's say he's found guilty. It doesn't matter. because it's the Joker. Someone will get him out of it or something, right? And then spoilers for the end of the movie. I guess we're talking spoilers.

Let's just talk spoilers. It literally doesn't matter because he just gets stabbed anyway. Yeah. And so maybe that's a part of the commentary is just like, oh, it didn't matter, nothing matters. Fine, but the movie wasn't interesting either way. Like, there was nothing compelling about it. The singing sucked. I thought it was perfectly fine up until Joaquin started.

singing and then it took like the biggest fucking nose dive off of a cliff that I've seen in like a long time in terms of a movie being fine and then just being like oh wow this is actually really bad you could hear the auto tune on him on him he he sucked at singing yeah there didn't quite fall apart for me fully by that point because there was fully a little there was something interesting going on as far as like this creepy dude singing this upbeat like 60s Hollywood song. There is something there. And he was at least without the singing aside, like his body language and the way he was moving and whatnot was like creepy and interesting. But you're right. And then as soon as that musical number ended, it does everything in his power

to remind the audience that, nope, that was non-literal. That was all in his head. And then establishes this, it's quite clear actually. It's it wants the audience to know what is real and what isn't, which to me is a huge miss and also a problem with that first movie where it's like, yeah, they spell it over. If he was more of like an unreliable narrator or there was more of a guessing game as to what was real, then maybe I'd be with this more. Yeah. It means these musical numbers, I really didn't get what they were going for after a while

because it wasn't really advancing a story. No, I felt like I was, I was in lockstep with where that character was emotionally. So him singing all of a sudden wasn't really. like exaggerating anything or explaining anything about where he was or where we're going or what we're thinking or what we're doing exactly yeah it just felt more like yeah an ode to the 60s and lady gargas doing her jazzy piano and whatnot and it's so it was it was nearly working on a concept level for me like when they the whole prison escape sequence there was something more interesting about that but I was just thinking to myself a lot of these scenes would be a lot

more effective if the school was just kind of playing in the background and they weren't singing I don't know why they had to be literally singing. I don't know if he felt like the, there's a little bit of like dancing and creepiness in that first movie, but it never quite went to that level, the whole like game show fantasy thing going on in that first movie. But it just, I couldn't figure out what like the angle was with that.

And honestly, past the hour point when these musical numbers kept showing up. Yeah, relentlessly. Yeah, it is relentless. And it's boring and just become, Each one kind of out cringes the previous one. Yeah. By the time you get to that scene with a gar-gah behind the other side of the glass

and the prison thing and then like singing in that little booth, I was like, I think I said it loudly, this is really cringy. Yes. This doesn't work, you know? And you even get like that cool shot in that scene with the, you know, the lipstick on the glass and whatever and I don't know, little hints of what maybe could be interesting. And there is something interesting buried in this, but man, is it very very, deep in something extremely dull. That was honestly one of my biggest issues with it was just

how dull and repetitive it was. I pressed the pause button at a certain point. It was like, are we like wrapping up sooner? Are we going somewhere with this? And it was like 57 minutes. Yeah. I was like, oh my god. Really? I am so glad I didn't see this in the theater. Yeah, same. Yeah, I'm glad I didn't. But the first movie doesn't really flow like that. It's got some clunky elements to it, but it is cohesive and it's got a building momentum to it as far as that game show thing. it's returning to it there is like a yeah there's a question to it it's escalating with him as a character and you're kind of there with him um whereas this is like yeah what do you want me to feel

i i feel like you have a lot to say but you're just throwing it in all these random directions and i don't know what part of it i'm supposed to be picking up because i don't really yeah this character's sad and the health stuff that you're ringing up and his traumatic past or whatever i get it But we did already kind of cover this in the first movie and that was explored to its potential pretty much. Like a... And then the romance angle with Gargar, it's like, oh, they... It's love at first sight and then they're singing about it and it's like... You're just wasting all the screen time when you could be developing these characters in a way like you did in the first movie,

where maybe I'd be with this more or at least more intrigued or it just doesn't go anywhere. Yeah, and their relationship never felt like real or developed or justified. It was kind of just like, oh, I guess you're here. I guess they're in a relationship now. Yeah, it was just love at first sight. And the more interesting element of it, I guess, was the whole Gaga. She's like, I'm in love with the idea of you, like, by the, the brutal ending where he goes to the Joker stairs and they have that little meeting on the famous Joker stairs. And they keep saying, there is no Joker.

There is no Joker. It's just me. The joke was on me. The audience. Yeah. But they say like there is no Joker, but then the film ends on him being killed by someone who in an interview, that recurring character who's like obsessed with him and kisses him towards the beginning of the movie. He revealed in an interview that he was playing the character Jack White, who, those who understand the comics know that that's normally Joker's alter alias, or his name that he goes by. And he like cuts his a smile into his face in the background while Arthur Fleck is dying, I guess, to hammer home the idea that Joker's just a concept and now,

Arthur Fleck is like the inspiration for the Joker or something and now he's gonna go I really don't know what they're Saying with that outside of like yeah he inspires riots and the idea of this character is bigger than the human himself and look how like we can pitiful he is on his own but the the idea of this joker is is so powerful and bigger than him and it's spreading like wildfire and no one can stop the joker but he's also not real it's just like what the fuck are we talking about it took a prison rape for him to realize that the The Joker's not real actually. What is with that scene? What did that add to this film? The way people talked about it, I thought they were going to show it.

Yeah, I did it too. But I was still kind of shocked like where it is in the movie, what it's trying to accomplish for the movie. It seems pointless, actually. Yeah. It's a weird plot device. Yeah, as if the character hasn't already been like battered and bruised enough. It's just like, oh. It's like, well, that's the only other angle.

We haven't gone sexual with it yet. Let's, uh, let's go that direction, I guess, to hammer home how serious this is. And like, he's like having sex with the lady Gaga in his cell. And then they do the whole pregnancy angle. It's like, oh, is that how there's a new Joker? Is that how Joker lives on? It's through the, the, what winds up being a Joker fan girl, basically getting pregnant and then falling out of love with him. Yeah, there's a lot of sprinkles of ideas.

God, it sounds correct. I sound like the Joker trying to explain my thoughts on this film. I know. Maybe that's... That's the point. You figured it out. You cracked the code. Oh, my God.

It just turns you into the Joker. There's a lot of sprinkles of ideas that just never get fully explored, you know? Uh-huh. Yeah, it just doesn't feel cohesive and it's wasting like a really good cast, too. You got Brandon Gleason in there, Catherine Keener. Alan Partridge shows up randomly. Steve Coogan doing it. an American accent was so weird though.

That is weird. That was distracting as fuck. Like, not even because I know what he's supposed to sound like. The voice was weird and also he looks very British too. You know? What does it mean to look British? I don't know. It looked like Steve Coogan.

Yeah. I find it weird too. There are some really British actors when they do that. I find it weird when Martin Freeman does it. too, but uh, yeah, what does it add? It just feels like they're wasting all of this potential with all these high class actors in there. And like Tim Dillon has a cameo. It's like a really weird film.

And he's been quoted like shit talking it. So it's like the worst film he's seen, but he's happy to be a part of such a big piece of shit. Yeah, it kind of quickly loses steam and interest and any kind of goodwill I had towards it. So, I guess Vera Drew's probably feeling pretty good right now. Who's this? This is the, what's the movie called? It was the trans Joker movie? The trans Joker?

You never, the People's Joker? You didn't know about it? Oh, I never saw that one. Okay. Yeah, it was fine. Like, you know, it was the better movie is what I'm saying. Oh, right. What was the thesis of that one?

I mean, it's a lower budget movie. And it was, uh, Joker's trans. Okay. It's more like a trans coming of age story that they kind of use Joker to tell for no reason. Because he's, the character's so popular. It's like,

it's like with the budget of hundreds of beavers, but like not as much talent. And so it's like, oh, this is ironic. We're in front of a green screen. But it's like you still could probably make it look like you'd have filmmaking talent. The story was good. I mean, there are some good moments.

But like speaking of the budget, though, like, is this a nearly $200 million movie to you? Like, you'd, I feel like you'd expect a bit more as far as like the locations are fairly repetitive after a while. It's just the actors. Yeah. I mean, it literally did mostly go to the actors and directors. and filming in LA, I guess, because... For some reason. Just as he insisted.

Yeah, that's weird. Why insist that if you're not going to be able to tell? I feel like they just sprinkle in a bunch of these random lines to try and get your mind wearing, to try and put something on it. Like, there's a random part of the movie where Lady Gaga's like, don't you think it's a little too much? I think it's her that says it. It's like, what, are you just talking to the audience, like, directly right now?

And they're like talking about the Joker movie, the made-for-TV Joker movie that Oh, yeah. Lady Gaga loves as a character. But then in court, they're saying about how bad it was and it makes Arthur feel all insecure. He's like, was it bad? And then Garga says, no, it was great. So, oh, my God, so we're just talking about the first movie then. Could we not have wrapped this up a little bit more?

Could we not have, like, told a compelling story or, I don't know, there was something also weird about how the whole, A lot of the advertising was using the musical numbers, which at a point just felt to me like, oh shit, we've made this Joker sequel and most of the movie he's not like in the Joker makeup really at all. True. And like the only time he really is is like in these musical numbers, but that ultimately aren't really to do with anything. And like that scene where he's beating the judge with the hammer. Yeah, everything is a dream sequence. That's a dream sequence.

And it's like, but that's also what you'd want to see the Joker character do. Yeah. But these are things you'd want to see in a movie like. Yeah, the Joker, he's got his crazy plan. And he does wind up smacking the judge with a hammer and then makes a joke about it or whatever. But then it's also like the film has no interest in doing a Joker movie, like as far as like, this is the Batman and the Joker. And we're doing that. It's not interested in that.

Could have been a spin-off. So it's like, so what are you interested in? You're trying to like deconstruct the concept of the Joker through this like sad human. But we've already done this in the first movie. They're not opening anything new, really. So it just feels so repetitive after a while. Yeah. And like the whole Harley angle where she's like,

the character's like a nurse who kind of is won over by the Joker and then like helps break him out or whatever in the books. But here she's like already in the asylum and it's like, yeah. And then I'm actually a rich kid and I'm a Nepo baby. And I was like, what do we? What are you saying? What does it mean? I just like attention.

Yeah. And she's like, yeah, she starts like a fire with on the piano and there's the whole like escape sequence. Yeah. But yeah, he killed like five people. I don't know why he's like a loud near. I don't know. I don't really get that. They trust these inmates and all of these people there with a lot of fire.

Yes. There's a lot of fire hazard in this movie. Everybody just smokes. has a lighter and then gets surprised when someone lights something on fire. Yeah, I guess it can all just be explained with like, oh, they're corrupt and I don't know.

Like, how are they conceiving a baby in solitary confinement? And it's all in his head anyway. Oh yeah, and it's in his head. Yeah, well, I think that was like, I think that was in his... I think most of it was just in his head. That's my interpretation. It's like nothing really happened.

That's like a cop-out. I know. I think the whole movie was a cop-out. It's such a cop-out. Yeah. I think the whole movie was filler. It doesn't feel like this... I kept thinking about Freddy got fingered, actually.

Nice. Because a lot of people say that about that movie too, right? Where it's like a big middle finger to the studio system and you got this big paycheck for this and like it's so overt and over the top. And it's like, yeah. this rebellious filmmaker doing what he wants. But here's like, I mean, you can say that, I guess, but he's like, Sambagged his career, the potential for any more films probably under WB.

Yeah. Because, like, surely with that success, he could have leveraged that to, like, make whatever artistic project he wanted. And then he did. That isn't a Joker movie. Right? This is what he wanted to do. Like, like, but I don't believe it, though.

I know. Because, like, he got paid 20 minutes. million dollars for it too so it's like he gets the best of both worlds he can just do whatever there's literally nothing on the line for him he made the first joker he's got his paycheck they've all got their paychecks like but then the studio like is it's bombed obviously it's not bringing the money back yeah I'm the film top Phillips was the joker all the long you get it is I'm making a joke of the audience isn't that funny isn't that hilarious it's like could you not just like

build that into a story somehow or like I like the idea of deconstructing it and this shadow thing and but it's all it's all buried within the themes and through the actual like plotting and the the scenes it just it's all lost to me as far as like anything to like guide you through it. It should have been just like a direct to max spin off and not advertised as an actual sequel in my opinion. I think that's part of the problem. Yeah, or make it like a stage show thing or make it yeah like a three part mini series. And I don't know, I mentioned in the review I remember for the first movie, something about like, I just don't like the idea of these solo villain movies that don't have the hook of like the whole point of Joker is that he's the inverse of the Batman character. It's like this one with rules and this one that's like anarchy and there's something fun about watching them clash constantly.

But then, I don't know, I've been watching that penguin show. And, you know, it's really solid. Colin Farrell's great in it. It's really compelling. It's like a good... Is it compelling? They're not talking about Batman all the time. Genuinely, yes.

Okay. Yeah. It's kind of carried on his back. I kind of, I'm very hesitant to start watching it. I was too, but I don't know. I'm seven episodes in as of recording this. I think it's really solid. There's like a really great new original character.

The performances are really great, especially Colin Farrell. The makeup is amazing on him. He's like a funny, interesting character. It's like delves into his. relationship with his family and it's like a character study like not like that first Joker movie but you know what I'm saying like it's something interesting about it there's something compelling about it and that's kind of all it really needs right it's like yeah make this a character study make give us some kind of

hook here give us something but what what is the hook of this because it's not for fans of the original Joker movie it's not for Batman fans it's not for DC people or comic people, it's not for like, who is this for? Outside of the director. It's, it's, yeah, I mean, that's reflected in the box office numbers

is that it's a real who is this for type movie. Like, it feels like not even everybody who liked the first movie saw this. Like, enough word of mouth. And also just like, I don't know, like conceptually,

is anybody really interested? As soon as you know, oh, it's a jukebox musical courtroom drama. As soon as you know that. Yeah. Is anybody actually interested in watching it? Because I know I wasn't. No. I mean, I kind of was to see what it was, but damn, you know, really glad I didn't see it in theaters.

It makes it more curious. Yeah. I guess. But like, not in the right way, I don't think. I don't know, because either of those things on their own would be a hard sell and putting them both together. Yeah. Like, that's what makes it feel like an intentional sandbagging thing.

And it takes 54 minutes to even get to the court scenes. I noted it down intentionally because I was like, this is so plodding. I mean, it was more interesting before it got to the court scenes though, in my opinion. I agree. Because I actually kind of liked that first 15, 20 minutes before we started getting into the Harley stuff and there was, I don't know, there was Brendan Gleason carrying it along and that that whole scene where he's getting shaved and there's a little dot of blood that he like mix off and so this is kind of cool the overhead umbrella shot so kind of like the vibe of

this movie but yeah and the lighting and the colors of it but man it just doesn't it can't hold it it just it's got nowhere to take you I really just can't figure out what it's trying to say hmm so there's the whole part about like trying to figure out if he's competent stand trial that's kind of what the first hour is largely about with the like Alan partridge interview and he's talking about some kind of martyr and in the background there's these rumblings of outside the the courtroom there's the the people dressed up as Joker and that all comes to a head with one of the random Joker fans bombing the the courtroom and so Joker can escape and then they they chuck him in his car and they're talking about yeah this is this is the start something big man but then he doesn't want anything to do with it and breaks out of the car and it's like it's it's it's like kind of saying everything so whatever and not take away from you can find an example of it but yeah at the same time it's it's really saying nothing so if you want to sit there and read it like a book and really delve into the themes it feels like you're

kind of you're putting that onto the film more so than actually exploring it in an interesting satisfying way and it's just it's just crazy to do that with this character to me like it's it's really not what is interesting about this character i don't think um and it was kind of my issue with that first movie too. But I don't know if there's enough really there. I need like this character contrasted against something. And I thought maybe that could be the Lady Gaga character or something. But no.

Harvey Dent? Hey, you mentioned it earlier. Like, what are you supposed to actually take away from that? Wow, dude. And then it's like, whoa, look, it's a reference to, oh, no, this is for the comic fact. But who's going to know, like, it's really baffling. Yeah. As far as I can say, like, why, why does that matter in this film that Harvey Dent gets?

Is that, is that a reference? Is that just like a, for the fans, nod? So we know. Because we were all dying to find out. Or are they thinking, like, in the back of their minds, yeah, we're not going to do another one. But just in case, it makes another billion. Like, we'll just put these sprinklings of things, you know, that's what the Harvey Dent thing feels like. What, the ending of the film with the Jack White killer feels like as well?

It's like, I don't know. You can just pluck it any of it. It honestly felt like, I thought that Joker was a strong enough IP that this would just make a billion dollars, even if everybody hated it. I did too, to be honest. Because, you know, Jurassic Worlds, Dominion, a billion dollars. Zero people liked that movie. Everybody watched it and said it was bad, and everybody watched it anyway. This movie.

It's kind of the only thing that makes it interesting in the end is the fact that it didn't manage to. to do that. Yeah, it's impressive. Because like, man, the, the imagery from that 2019 movie, it's, like, iconic now. People love that film. They are obsessed with it. It has amazing reviews all around. The audience loves it. Maybe not critically, but it has an enormous audience and really connected with people. And I don't know if there's something to do with, like, the way he conceptualized that original movie with, like, he didn't want people to have liked the character as much as they did. Because that was, like, the takeaway from the movie was that people had endless sympathy and were like, I, I'm, yeah, I've got nothing but sympathy for this

character and they're there with him and maybe he didn't like that about that movie and he wanted people not to enjoy it as much and be more sickened by it, but they weren't. So is this like the response to that? Yeah. It's like, no, I'm going to, I'm going to make you hate the Joker now. I, you can't like this Joker that I made. It's like, I get to decide. There's something very frustrating about that. And I feel like the audience has picked up on whatever that energy is, whatever that reactionary or reactive response to that first movie is. And the distance as well is interesting too. The 2019 is a long time ago now.

It's like five year gap. I guess, yeah, I don't know. It doesn't really feel, I feel like making a successful sequel to that film would really not have been that difficult. If you just use the model of the first movie. Yeah. If you wanted to make a billion dollars, you could just. just, yeah, shit out the same movie again if you really wanted. Yeah, just take another couple classics, combine them and put the Joker in it.

I feel like that's, that would be the winning formula. So was he like, was he seconded by the success of it and was like wanting to make sure it didn't happen again? But why would he feel that way when this is the same guy who made three hangover movies? Yeah. You know? I don't know. That's why he's so interesting to me now. Because I have no idea what the fuck is going on in his crazy brain.

Like, he could be the next, uh, Neil Breen or some shit. I don't know. That's why I don't get though, because it's like you had Cartet Blanche after that movie to do whatever you wanted. Like the, you made a Joker movie that made a billion dollars and didn't even have Batman in it. A baby Bruce Wayne. Another thread that like, I guess is forgotten.

Yeah, not important. That was like a big part of that first movie. It was like, yeah, we're making sure you know this is in the Batman universe, right? this we're mentioning Batman, his dad by name, that's like part of the story. He thinks like Bruce Wayne's dad is perhaps his dad and there's that whole thing going on. This one's like outside of the Harvey Dent and the random thing at the end, there's this really very little effort to make it come across like it's in that world or that that's important to this film. It's like, I don't know, it seems like kind of intentional that angle. It's so, so strange. Like,

trying to pick it apart from that direction but it's like we're not even talking about the film at that point is we're just talking about Phillips like sitting down and watching the film is not an enjoyable experience that's the interesting conversation the film is not trying to figure out what the fuck was going on in his brain yeah exactly like the film itself like there's no tension there's no momentum I cannot emphasize that enough there's no momentum to the way the film moves and no tension to any of it there was an underlying tension to that first movie like you're kind waiting for this guy who's just getting beaten up and beaten on and beaten on you're waiting for him to snap in some form with the expectation of what the Joker is like

collectively in everyone's minds and then you get that with that you know the scene at the end with De Niro but there's nothing like that here that yeah of course that's not going to connect with broad audiences that you know getting a broad audience to even check out courtroom dramas as it is is kind of a big ask like I I don't know. It seems weird. And then even if you can't put the Joker in there and then make that interesting or work, because it's, yeah, I don't know how to pass it. And there is something disingenuous about that marketing too. I got to, I got to mention because, yeah, well, they're like best looking shots and moments that look like, oh, this is going to be bombastic in some ways. This is going to build to something. They show the big explosions in the trailer and whatnot. And so when you actually get to. see those scenes within the context of the movie, it's so like deflated and okay. So either this this didn't real and we've made we've made so damn sure you know it's not real that you're, there's not even a question mark really. Like you're saying you don't think a lot of the movie is literal and is supposed to be in his head, but that just feels like, I don't know, putting it onto the film because it seemed overt with like what it was trying to communicate as being in universe and in the character's head.

and maybe that's going over me or I feel like the first movie did that too too much with his like a... The flashback. Imaginary girlfriend and stuff like that. Yeah. And just being like, why are you just hammering home the literal nature of these scenes

when I'd kind of like to be left guessing with someone who's supposed to be in a mental state that is unpredictable and all over the place and he needs to be medicated but you can't get it and that's like part of the point of the film. It just doesn't really do it. do that. Yeah, the marketing was

kind of like kangaroo jack. It was. Everything interesting wasn't actually happening. Kangaroo Joker. Yes. But like who had expectations, like what are your expectations for the kangaroo

and kangaroo jack, you know, compared to like the Joker? Everyone knows this character. He's like, it must be like the most popular Halloween costume by now. You see like, millions of people dress up as the Joker they are obsessed with this character ever since the dark night he's like just taken off yeah he's the main attraction

and even that you know the the last time he was big in cinema Jared Letto that suicide squad movie with him in was abysmal but like people still watch that movie they made hundreds of millions of dollars it made more money than this movie it's just something about that character that connects in a way that I don't really get and I didn't really get it with the previous Joker film as much but yeah it just seems like even the director and everyone making it is sick of it as well like yeah they don't actually like Joker they don't care yeah what do they want to do or say with this character like I just can't believe it they let this happen you know it's what he wanted

He probably wanted to make no money also. I mean, he already made his money. Exactly, yeah, he's got tens of millions. He probably wanted to just run this into the fucking ground. So, like, is he going to retire? Is he going to retire from films? He said. From directing?

I think that should have been the announcement, like, right after this was finished. Like, fuck all you, I retire. And then maybe there'd be more of like a, okay, at least this is funny on like a meta level where, like, Maybe he was sickened by the success of the previous movie. It was a trick. He's just sick of the Hollywood system and it was just literally a troll. And he just got his and put, and it's just two hours, 20 minutes of middle fingers up at the screen. Yeah, it's fun to speculate, I guess.

But like Lady Gaga, I think is like upset about this and like she's never been a part of a project that has been bad. Not been well received like this, you know, like not just like, yeah, not just bad. but like hated people hate this film i think it's funny that quentin tarentino considers this film to be like a fuck you to comic book geeks and hollywood because it it seems it seems like there's a good chunk of people that think that this movie is like a fuck you to hollywood and the hollywood system which i think is amusing having a movie where you have a 200 million dollar budget and full creative control being a move a fuck you to the hollywoods

system like yeah it's so how do you explain the like reverence for the like 60s hollywood musicals then is that like ironic i think he just i think it's the same reason seth macfarland has all the show tunes and family guy i think he just likes it i think he has a fetish for it he wanted it in his fucking movie he's like oh i like these things i think you thought it was art that's my interpretation i think he genuinely thought he was doing so how can it be how can it be a statement, an anti-Hollywood statement if it's, if it has something genuine like that in it, like a genuine love for something or... I'm not sure it is.

I don't know what the fuck he's thinking. I'm not convinced it's an anti-Hollywood statement film. No, but also how would it also be an anti-comic book nerd thing as well, though? Because he still made the other Joker movie. Yeah, that was like his idea, wasn't it? It was his idea and it was ungodly successful. It was sure, it was releasing that time where every Subira movie, including Aquaman, was making a billion bucks. But people genuinely connected with it.

And yeah, I don't know what to think about that. Because I'm not convinced either. All these theories seem like equally reasonable to me. And it just gives him like the ultimate out, you know? Because with the hangover movies, there was this kind of. almost like self-aware disgust with themselves the longer they went on and almost like this nihilism that grows with them like by the time you get to that third movie and it opens on like a giraffe being like decapitated on a highway and it's like what is funny about this is just like is that like middle finger up thing as well because you're all sick of making sequels and hangover movies but it's like you're also getting paid millions and millions of dollars and you're in a position that people would literally kill for yeah if not worse so there's something tone deaf about it from that respect to me he literally he literally got free rein to make whatever movie he wanted

and this is what he did yeah but then isn't that like if if if he wants it to be an f you to include someone like lady garga who is giving it her all and like making music for it and stuff like this and is like devastated by the response and how it didn't come together but also would have read the script and must have liked something about it someone must have been convinced by something and to have these like amazing actors like phoenix and gleason and keener why why would you cast people like that if if you knew it was going to suck or that's what you're trying to say with it or is it just missing it's to up its own ass as it were of its own butt boy to like really communicate what the complex

themes that was trying to do. Maybe it's just the combined writing talents of Scott Silver and Todd Phillips maybe aren't able to communicate these themes in a way that's entertaining and can be hidden within a comic book movie. Because you can hardly call the 2019 Joker a comic book movie either. It was one of the things that made it more alluring, I think, to people were interesting because it looked like a real movie. It's got like lighting. It wasn't all on a green screen the sound stage like it had this score and a different tone and was a character study and these things you want to see from a movie you know and so yeah this reaction to it what's it saying it's driving me crazy I'm gonna start joke I love it I don't think you're

ever going to find out I think you're just gonna have to let it rest or let it haunt you for the rest of your life yeah well it's also just not that interesting though I do yeah so it doesn't matter so you'll forget about it Tarantino um was also joined by Kajima. Yes. Like just the other day was tweeting about

like unsurprisingly. Mm-hmm. Well normally when he sees something that sucks he's just like I saw Joker too. But he like wrote like paragraphs about this film. So I don't know if that's just like his creative mind or whatever having this like he's just taking it the concepts away and like rolling with it. I don't know.

I don't know how to read it. I kept thinking about that through the film like, what am I feeling right now? I never really, I didn't feel anything. It was just kind of like conceptually kind of interesting, like deep within like actually what you're seeing. But like it's not really being communicated clearly and it's all over the place and it's dull and repetitive and structure and it wasn't go anywhere and it just gets more and more embarrassing as it goes on. Yeah, I mean, I didn't read into it too much. I just think it's a funny,

a funny little fart. But like, did you find it funny, like entertaining that way? Or like, when was your breaking point is for it? Because it's a long movie. Yeah, exactly. It's like two hours, 20 minutes long. I was mostly bored, but I was doing like a fucking watch along on my Twitch thing. And there was a lot of music and I would just like play along on my keyboard. And, I just kind of jam out. I do our own fun to it, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it can be what, you know, you can make fun out of anything. Like the Joker, it can be anyone.

Yeah. I thought it was really funny when he got stabbed, and then in the fake stage universe, he's also stabbed, and then he starts singing. That was funny. That was a good moment. Yeah. A good, in quotes, moment. Yeah.

I thought the line where he said, knock, knock, who's there? Arthur Fleck. Arthur Fleck, who? I thought that was funny, because it was like, unbearably pretentious. Who is the Arthur Fleck?

Who am I? Oh, my shadow self. Yeah, yeah. There were loads of lines like that. All we heard was the fantasy and you gave up. Yeah, it's just a, it's a very, like pretentious bad movie and I can't believe that it was made it's it's kind of useless. Yeah, I guess yeah, the more I think about there is something kind of pretentious about it with like,

I'm even thinking out like the judge character, the recurring judge character, he was like intentionally cast to look like Scorsese right, but he had the big thick black rim glasses and he was like an old man. They look like the same. So it's like what what do you say with that then? Are you like building in that commentary or critique of that first movie or is it just simply a reference or an ode to your love of the king of comedy? And we already kind of did that by having De Niro in the first movie. So is that just an extension of that idea?

Like it's so open. You can you could just go on forever listing like, is it this? Is it that? Maybe it was this it was going for. Oh, that would be interesting if it was about this theme expanded. Oh, and it's like, no. It's just dull. It would be more interesting if it was crazier.

If this wanted to be like whatever, you know, read into the subtext and things aren't actually happening and blah, blah, blah, if it was just crazier, you know, if it was just, if it was just, if it just had something more to it, just different scenes instead of like two locations for a fucking $200 million movie. like no locations. Yeah, because by the time, I was like, there's like a sigh of relief when he breaks out of the courtroom. And he's like running down the streets of Gotham. I was like, ah, some like movement, some, something's happening. Like, you know, there's some excitement or something to watch. But yeah, it's like by that point, it's so deflated. It's so uninteresting.

Yeah, there's no hook to this film. All right, well, I mean, I've said everything I wanted to. How about you? Yeah, I'm just looking at my notes. I don't think there's much more. I only watched this yesterday, too, and there's no, there's not really much that's, I haven't really thought about it, to be honest, outside of just watching it directly and taking my notes when I did.

So allegedly, they told Lady Gaga to not sing as good as she usually does, so it would be more natural. And so some people were using that as an excuse to justify Joaquin Phoenix's terrible singing voice. But I think that that doesn't work as an excuse because he's auto-tuned to shit. So if it's supposed to sound more natural, then you wouldn't want it to sound like he's a robot.

Right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. I just, from that jukebox musical, scenes I just wanted like just some something compelling or some point to them you know know every time it happened it felt like it was like putting the movie on pause for a second just to do this ode and it's like man if they could have fixed that it was kind of reminding me of music weirdly like that movie is kind of similar structure

with that sort of thing except actually in music it uses it better music was at least it's like communicating something that the characters I can't believe I'm fucking praising music right now. Hell yeah. See a sweep. Dude. Yeah, but it's also like the courtroom stuff's not compelling. You need someone who can actually write compelling courtroom dramas.

I was just zoned out for a lot of it. I was thinking about my, uh, how to optimize my second B camera setup after my room, uh, reorganizing. Yeah, it is one of those. for it's like, yeah, did I leave the oven on kind of movies? Yeah, three out of ten. Yeah, big mess. Big miss, crazy. Yeah, man, I would give it lower.

I'd give it a one star. Nice. I guess two out of ten. I think the production is solid, I guess. Like, it's, well, show there are some good shots in there. It's often just at the expense of nothing, though. A lot of the performances are strong. The cast is good.

Every technical element is there, but it's like what it's in service of is not interesting to me. So yeah. No, there was no Joker. No. Ever. The first movie didn't exist, actually. All right. But boy.

See, the title has something to it. And I think that's why I watched it. Because there's a lot of things that wind up in my watch list in for one reason or another Someone will just be like hey add this to your watch list And I'll be like okay And I think I prioritized this one because of the title I think I was like you know it

I'm gonna watch but boy Wait so how did you find it originally I don't know So you didn't see it like I saw it debuted in Austin No I've never done It's called it there.

Hmm. Okay, so it's purely that name. Yeah. Yeah, it was already in my watch list too, but yeah, as I say, like, it's never got round to it. So you'd seen it before, just the ones. Well, I've seen it. This is probably my, like, fifth or sixth watch.

Oh, wow. Okay. Butt boy fan over here. It's something, you know, I watch it every, like, year or two. Oh, cool. I guess it's only been four years since it came out. I've probably seen it like five times. Same year as Joker it came out, actually.

True. It's not even that I'm like a huge fan. It's just that there are some scenes that are just so funny that it's just worth the entire thing. The entire experience of the movie, even if even if the whole thing isn't like super compelling or super well shot, there's like some parts of it that are for sure repetitive.

And, you know, there's a lot of room for improvement. but you know those those few lines and moments and shots and concepts are just so outrageous that it just it's it's worth the whole movie and it's not only worth the whole movie but it makes me want to show other people the movie it may this is one of those films where even though I don't think it's amazing I think everybody should see it yeah like everybody's got to watch but boy it's uh I think you nailed it with the concept thing. Yeah. Man, did they commit? They committed to the butt boy bit. They really. And it's wacky. Like, explain like the premise. Oh, yeah. Sell people on but boy.

But boy. Um, it's kind of like an, uh, like a villain story, like Joker. But, but, but basically the main character or villain like I don't know which one's the main character the titular butt boy yeah the titular butt boy he gets a rectal examination

I guess like a prostate exam yeah and it's his first time and he likes it so much that he needs to start putting other things up there and he's um He starts with a bar of soap and then a remote.

And you can see his character transformation. He needs this more than anything. And it starts to take over his life as an addiction. And there's a supernatural element to the film where he can he can put like entire children and dogs

and dogs he can fit a lot up there and it's like a portal almost it's a yeah so I don't want to spoil too much I guess but that's the hook

yeah that's the hook is that there's So much room up there. But he also he gets more powerful the more things that go up his butt. That's a funny line. Oh yeah, that's great. It's just a theory. Yeah.

That's just my theory anyway. I like the concept of the officer explaining that. The detective explaining that to the police. Yeah, I thought that was one of the funniest scenes, to be honest. So you're telling me. Yeah. Still got like a really good idea of what's going on. Yeah.

And the police chiefs is like, just so happens. And keep saying, yeah, just so happens that we're going up his butt. And he's getting more power. Oh my God. Yeah, I actually, at first I was like, oh man, I kind of don't like that this guy's the main character. Because how far can you take this? So then when it does the switch to more of the like procedural like detective angle, I was like this is it this is how you do it having him be like the antagonist of the movie is hilarious

That's such a funny spin element and using that like you know the typical procedural structure in order to Get the plot moving and move along Yeah because I much preferred that other character the the detective and it's so like Deb Pan he's playing it so serious that that adds to the humor obviously and I think that's part of what makes that it work overall because it's such an absurd, a truly absurd concept. So to sort of sell it, this is the right angle to do it. And kind of the only way to do it with this budget, I would say, because that's another thing I was, I was honestly impressed by.

Before watching out, I saw 150K budgets to kind of set my expectations for what sort of film this might be. And with that in mind, I was, yeah, quite impressed actually with how it was put together with some of the creativity of like the shots, like just a random one pop. into my head is when the later on the film there's a train that's kind of in the background and it seemed to me like, oh, on this budget, were they just like looking up when the trains were going to be going past and they like set up this shot quickly and I don't know, there's a lot of like kind of scrappiness to it, which I really liked as far as that, that stuff's concerned

and how it was put together. But yeah, it was like, how can you take this concept to its logical extreme and they do take it to its extreme by that, that third act in particular. It got funnier as it went along. It got more compelling as it went along. And yeah, it just overall gets better as it goes along. And it's not a one-trick pony with what the opening kind of scenes might make it feel like it's going. Oh, he's just going to keep it more and more things up his butt, I guess, and they're going to get bigger. Like, where can you go with that? But they find the angle. They figure out a way to do it. Yeah, weird film, but like clever, weirdly as well. But boy is kind of clever. Yeah, the title is really good, too.

This is actually, so the, this is, I guess, created by this filmmaking. I don't know if it's just one guy, but he has a YouTube channel called Tiny Cinema, and it has 16,000 subscribers. And this is based off of one of their, like, minute-long short films. Yeah. It's uploaded in 360P in 2016. And it has 44,000 views. So it's not even like, oh, you know, successful YouTuber makes a movie sort of thing.

This is just, yeah, they have just like that one. A small thing. And then they decided, this is the concept we're going to turn into a feature is but boy. And basically the short is just like, I don't know, the first minute of the film, just not as much production value. Yeah. And the the but boy in question is the director, right?

I don't know. It could be. I'll have to look it up. Yeah, I think if I look at yeah, when I search his picture, it looks like the... Cornick. Cornack, yeah.

Yeah, why not? Yeah, he's the butt boy. Yeah, I feel like that makes sense because there's a lot of like nude scenes and like Yeah, to ask someone else to do that is Yeah And to like be the villain and whatnot I respect that

The guy just wanted to show everybody his butt Sometimes it's as simple as that And he found a way to do it Yeah There's a lot of his butt In the movie There is But that's

I don't know that commitment to it Is what I like about it Where it's like It isn't it doesn't feel like a one minute short stretched out to an hour and a half. There are echoes of that, but it's like, there's more going on weirdly in a way that you wouldn't expect from something based off a one minute short. With like where they take it, where it goes, the, are we talking spoilers yet?

Yeah, let's do it. Watch butt boy. Because especially, as I say about it, like getting better as it goes along, especially towards the end where you go it you go into the butt boy and just the way it's like presented yeah just a cave was like the yeah I read they went to um the Bronson back caves in L.A. so oh like a real cave and then they just did red light lighting okay yeah I guess that makes sense yeah they're actually in a cave system but obviously like the way they lit it and uh yeah they put the the red lighting and it's like uh what kind of shaking

and there were these particles in the air to kind of obscure things. That was another thing that was working for me. It was like they showed just enough and apply just enough. Like with that budget, maybe if this was like $50 million or something you'd expect to actually see a bit more craziness as far as the visual effects, but with what they do with showing like he gets another exam later on in the movie from a doctor and like the way that's put together is funny. these like flashes of close-ups of like fingers from the inside of lemmy wink style like inside

the tubes or whatever and the editing of it is uh does what they can with that budget to present this idea um and they do a good job of that this is this is a more ambitious film than joker too yeah there's more sets well actually lands it though as well as the difference they might both be ambitious ambitious but this actually takes the concept to its extreme and manages to do it somehow. And that's with 150K budget. Like, that's like a fraction of what Lady Gaga was paid for the full film.

It's crazy how many movies there are that are like solid that are under a million dollars in the past like five years. There's a lot of. Oh, yeah. A bunch of them. Yeah. Hundreds of beavers. Yeah. It's more and more of like a platform as.

Hollywood, I guess, gets more and more boring. More of these people are getting picked up and maybe this one's a bit too out there for, because I don't know if he's done much after this, if this did release in 2019 and I see one other feature he's released, but have you seen this one? The tiny cinema movie? No. I guess based on that show. I don't know if it has quite the response that But Boy does if the concept carries it quite as well.

I could watch it. We'll see. Just out of curiosity, I guess. Because there really is no, nothing like it. I was trying to think of like more absurdist comedies, like a Swiss Army man or the lobster. But it's nothing like this. No.

I kind of got reminded a bit of the substance on this watch. Just the, well, yeah, because the commitment of where they take the story and also, you know, blood on the crowd at the end. you know, that's a little bit of a trope. It's happened in like other movies too, but just I guess recently having watched the substance and seeing that now, I'm like, I think that is kind of also an explanation of what I think would carry this movie into like a broader appeal or greatness is if it had the same production value and filmmaking talent as the substance. I think that like if if this. same concept was directed by Coralie Farge. Then, you know, everybody would be talking about it maybe.

I'd even be willing to say the same director, but maybe put a few more zeros on the end of the budget. Yeah. I mean, yeah, if we... To be honest. What we got for $150,000 is pretty great. Because that is exceptionally low. Yeah.

Taking that into account, that is impressive what they got, what they managed to do. with like it's less repetitive than Joker like you're going to all different places and locations and you're going in the cave man you're going in the butt boy it's yeah it takes you all over the place and it's a journey there's even like a genuinely kind of impressive again with the budget like police shootout scene yeah which is like not what i was expecting again from a film of this budget and that yeah that's sort of a confidence going on as well that late title card and like oh you you actually have something to you have somewhere to take this

and you're kind of expanding on the concept you're making it funnier as it goes along um i was getting nostalgic over the floppy discs around a random weird inclusion for a 2019 film with the the butt boys like the IT guy at his uh work that's been out forever and the the floppy disc is a big plot point i guess um because it has some some evidence of the child disappearing from the bring your child into workday scene. I don't know why he didn't just put it up his butt like everything else. I know. There's so many plot, like, like, there's a lot of things that don't make sense.

He could have arrested him, like, in front of his wife. There's no reason why he had to, like, play and pretend as if he wasn't going to. Like, at that point, there was reasonable suspicion. I don't know why they both left and then decided to have, like, duke it out in the street like that was like right after that dramatic I guess let's go this way and then they decided to like fight each other in the street

although what it led to is one of my favorite moments is when like you start to hear the wind howling and the window breaks oh my god it looks in his side view mirror he's like I guess trying to suck his entire car in

through his asshole but just the wind sound and that shot of his butt is the funniest fucking thing yeah and then the glass smashing cheek that's that that is that's like pure cinema

that shot is so funny that was another like escalation moment where it's like oh yeah you have more to show here and that's not the last time they do it either with the whole like the laser tag yeah

sequence right before the lead character is sucked up the butt. And I think with something like that shot and concept, I think it works better as a low budget thing. Because you don't, there's a humor to how silly it looks. There's a humor to how it does as a charm, like professional. In the same way that like hundreds of beavers understood its own limitations

and then use those limitations towards its benefit. Like, okay, we're going to make this a part of the comedy. That's an example in this movie. And you're not really laughing at it. It's self-aware, it feels like it knows how goofy it is. It's playing it up in a way that is just serious enough, but it's not irritating to watch either. Yeah, I think the music actually did a lot for this film. Like, the choice of tone.

That has to be serious. It had to for it to work. Yeah. So it's got this like electronic score. that's like pounding like a I don't know like a detective procedural you'd expect and just yeah having that there is it's funny and the same of like the the lighting as well with it's kind of harsh colors going on and yeah it's trying to make you think it's a procedural and with that character playing it's so straight it does yeah enhance the just ridiculous goofiness of it like when they

when they resorting to like eating shit and when they're in the cave to stay alive and the whole reincorporation of the hot sauce thing. I was like, okay, that's funny, that's clever. I'm glad there's... What did he drink? There's more than just the concept. He drank some like blue liquid that killed the Asian kid. Yeah, that was pretty brutal actually. Was it like poison? What was that? It was, I think I noted it down. Um, it was some kind of tonic. Let me just control left tonic. See if I would noted it down. Um, I didn't. Yeah, it said tonic on the bottle and it had like skulls on it so i think it's something to do with like clearing your digestion digestion yeah but then it's like would he want to clear is it because then wouldn't that make them come

like it melted him it melted the boy like he's dead he doesn't even survive to the he almost made it too he was like he was one of the better character i was rooting for that boy yeah and they show the shot of his dad like yeah he's like it did make it just with a glance basically I felt bad for the dad. Yeah. And then we get that fucking, the detective's long lost baby grown up with, like, I guess has just been living inside the guy's ass for like 10 years. And like won't ever be able to develop cognitively into a normal adult. Like you're just stuck with this guy.

But it's also kind of a happy ending. They're like, oh, and the wife's back. He's like, I, he just points towards the hospital door. Like, I got our child. Yeah. No, it's just playing on the like, the tropes of the detective and the, knowing that kind of formula well enough to be able to build it in and make it absurd to the degree. But it's like, this is, this is crazy.

Exactly. Like in the intro, I mentioned that it's a fart line. It's a fart. Like the, they. again they play it straight to the point where it's like the characters in the scene are like distressed by this happening and they clearly know it's like something to be worried about so how serious they're taking it is like just so so absurd it's funny yeah it's crazy it's it's definitely not for everyone I there's a good chunk of people

I've shown this movie and they were like eh but I think it's charming yeah I think there's something to it I think it's charming to I'm glad you enjoyed it's a certain type of person I would show I yeah I don't know I don't know what the like litmus test is is it like do you find the title funny do you find the first 20 minutes funny because I agree it's not like it's not the best thing I've ever seen it's it's it has a lot of flaws it clearly has the budget it has it but But it's also like, what else could you do with this concept? It is taking this concept and doing it basically everything possible.

Yeah. Yeah. With the budget especially. With the budget, not being irritating, which is like a big thing for me with like these comedies. If it can just maintain. It's like, it's the same reason I love that there might be a weird pull, but something like Gears of War where it's so dumb.

But it plays it so straight that it just makes it funny and compelling. No, I know what you mean. This is kind of like the inverse of Joker 2. Almost, yeah, almost exactly. And I was thinking like this would be an awesome like midnight movie madness or like saying it with the crowd movie. Yeah, of course. People who were there for But Boy, this would be quite amazing.

And I especially loved the resolution too with the hot source, with him lighting the fart and like exploding him from the... And the fart noise when he explodes too. He's exploding him from the inside out. And he's exploding his guts onto the American flag. Yeah. The choices with that. Yeah.

It's deadpan. It's weird. It's not like groundbreaking or changing the world, setting the world on fire. More than Joker. Yeah. I'd recommend this before Joker. I don't know. I feel like if that premise is compelling to you,

you probably will find something to laugh at here. Yeah. And I wasn't really even laughing out loud till deeper into the movie. The first time I was like really kind of laughing instead of just finding it amusing was that police chief scene. And just how deadpan it was in that delivery of it. It was like, okay, this is getting funnier. Like you're actually going there. It's just so dumb.

I just appreciate how dumb it is. Yeah. So dumb, but taking it seriously. Yeah. So if anybody at home wants to see a movie with anal vore in it, this is your film. It's in the movie. Yeah, I don't know what would happen if you showed this to like a five-year-old. Like what?

I don't think you should, but... We could always find out. If you found this in the pile. Yeah. Uh-huh. To a little experiment. Daddy's secret collection Butt boy

20 copies of butt boy Yeah when he's like in the hole And he's like holding up the sign Days in the hole Bored I don't know how he counted days in there Did you have a watch on? Maybe it's a little A little number on there

Hmm Maybe he could tell when he's sleeping Yeah when it's just kind of carried by the premise for a lot of it and just the dedication like wow you're really going there you're really doing this and it was it was just well made enough doing enough visually with these like comedic zooms the editing of it like after the the suicide attempt going back to that stuff like that it did just enough to keep me entertained for how goofy and insane

that concept is yeah I would give this a six maybe a low six but it's it's yeah it's something I enjoy and we'll continue watching every once in a while and I think more people should see it every year so far yeah I yeah I did enjoy it a lot I probably also give it a low six I would just preface I'd recommend it to a certain type of person probably I don't know if I'd show this to my grandma, for example. I'll show it to your grandma. Maybe I should.

Maybe the reaction be awesome. Yeah, maybe. All right. Question time. Right, let's do some questions from the Sardonicast community then. If you want to leave questions for future episodes, head over to the suggestion thread over on the subreddit. Just like James Marsden 0472 did.

Hello. All this question can be used for both. but the second part mostly for Adam you guys have both said you guys are nihilists or don't believe in God what was it that made you guys nihilist to even begin with and was it based on truth did the holy mountain add to it

or was it the truth that you connected with thank you guys for the content for Adam you changed my life and maybe more maybe a more thoughtful person and I love you guys for it thank you I don't know if I don't know if you I can only speak for myself

but I don't think I've ever described myself as a nihilist anywhere I don't think I've ever described myself as a nihilist. I think they're putting that on us. A bad memory. In fact, the concept of a nihilist has always been kind of funny to me because of the big Lebowski. Like, that was the first time when I was like 12 and saw that and was introduced to it.

I've done deeper reading on it since then, obviously, but it's not really my personal philosophy. Yeah, so, okay, dictionary according to Google. the rejection of all religious and moral principles in the belief that life is meaningless. I don't think that describes me. I think that you can make an argument that life is meaningless, but it's the meaning that you give life that is meaning. Like, meaning is subjective, right?

Yeah. So you can have profound meaning in anything. It's just what you give it or what you consider it to be. You know, I have my own moral principles. They're not from religion. but yeah I don't I don't think that life being meaningless drives me to reject morality and I don't even think that the Holy Mountain is a nihilistic movie that's not what I took away from it either it's like it's kind of like a spiritual

movie it's it's like a lot a lot of my favorite films the Holy Mountains in Ecique New York are are kind of their things that that are more like a reflection of yourself. They give you the opportunity to find out more about yourself through the film. Mm-hmm. By showing you what you take out of it, if that makes sense. Yeah. I hear that.

There's enough to interpret about it. It's loose enough. Mm-hmm. Um, I'm curious then on the religious aspect of building up ethics. And that's like, constantly debated right and brought up like how can you build it on anything if religion never existed or wasn't a thing right um and i find that interesting to think about too and part

of me thinks it's almost like a human necessity to at some point create religion to not go insane uh with like self-awareness and uh expanding groups beyond just a town. Religion allows group identities to spread globally in like a social way. I disagree, but I understand why people think

that. The biggest reason why is because religion is constantly enforcing that idea. Religion is constantly, like you participate in any religion. You go to church. You read the hymns. You know, you start chanting and you actually think about what you're saying, a lot of it is like, oh, we are worthless

without God and my life would be bad without religion and every good thing in my life is the product of religion and every bad thing in my life is because of the absence of religion and because I don't have enough faith, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That's an idea that is constantly drilled in through many of these religions. And because it's so present in society, it's very difficult for people to imagine a lot of societal aspects that religion does provide in some sense. It's difficult for people to imagine what would that be like without religion. But if you break it down into individual attributes, individual positives that we get from religion, right?

Let's say one of those things would be like charity work, right? So a lot of churches do charity work, you know, sheik temples, give food to the homeless, right? That can exist without religion. A sense of community, right? That can exist without religion. But you need to put in a bit more of an effort to actually get that in your life if you're going to do it without religion. Because religion is like the base default. It gives your framework.

You know, like, oh, go to church and then this is my community. And it's just the thing you do because other people. people have already been doing it, right? You know, morality, that doesn't, that wasn't invented by religion. Religions have had to adapt to our sense of morality, right? That's why religions keep getting updated is because we've grown past a lot of the, the, uh, very outdated, archaic, like, oh, you can, you know, as long as you beat your slave with this size of stick, that's cool.

And child marriages are awesome. Like, we've got. Sort of picking and choosing Yeah And so People people Some people might find this ridiculous But I encourage people to actually like think about

This concept that I'm about to say I think that there's a lot of parallels Between religion And the furry fandom Because all of these individual aspects and traits that I've broken down can be found within these niche subculture things like the furry community, right?

I feel like I do have very much a community of people through that. You know, there are charities, you know, there are events. There's, you know, like the furry mecca is like anthrocon, right? You know, we have our own interests, our own lingo, our own, like, celebrities even. And there is like a sense of connection, you know, those things exist and if you break it down they're basically the exact same things that you're getting from religion just without the uh insistence that there's some sort of supernatural thing happening right otherwise literally every single thing in the checkbox is met so yeah i'm glad

that i have my outlet for those things in my sense of community and my you know kinship and all that. And it sucks that it sucks that this type of thing is not readily available for everyone. You know, like I don't know how many niche communities or subcultures are going to offer that or how easy

it is if someone is, let's say, looking for a sense of community or a deeper meaning in connection with other people. I don't know how easy it is for the average person to be able to find that. So maybe religion is just the easy answer for a lot of people. Well, yeah, I can tell you from experience, it's difficult.

That's just something I've always felt like I've never, I never like belong anywhere. I don't have like a community like that outside of my family. Yeah. And I guess I have the depending on how you look at it, the luxury to have never had any form of religion really kind of shoved down my throat or the through my experience growing up it was just not something but I also can't where I get stuck is just like that only comes from living in a country where we are non-theistic for the most part yeah as far as a lot of countries are concerned but the Christianity is deeply rooted in what we were yeah so it's

almost seems like some form of like a cultural evolution type change and you can argue about what's good and what's bad about that, but you kind of hit the nail on the head with some of the the things that I've lost, I guess, like this group identity, this, uh, sense of community or whatever is more of a struggle outside of that. I think that that is something beneficial that like most people would get something out of. And I think most people to, to some extent, even need. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's a basic human need.

Our brains are wired from like, I don't know, tribes and villages, not this modern day weird mess of society where everyone's like cold and distant from each other. And our sense of like connection with others is like through the internet, you know. Yeah. And we form micro communities and there's like cult of personalities and ways that are so accentuated or possible in ways that were never before. It's just like I don't get how you get to this place without religion being there. Because we can't even argue from the opposite, right? Because it is a concept we just created, and it just in the steps to get here, it was part of it. And it was kind of how we organized group identities and group ethics and morals with like, yeah.

Yeah, killing is bad. And that is a rule. And we need to keep that as a rule for the group and these sort of things. And like you filter out as time goes on. I think we can have the exact same thing without religion. And this is evidenced by, I don't know, most people who are religious. just don't seem like that attached to the actual beliefs of the doctrine anyway. You know, two people will get married and then one will be like, I want to raise the kids

Catholic and the other one will be like, okay, again, it doesn't matter. Like, people change religions. Some people will go like, I think I like to be a Jew actually. And then they just change religions. And it's like, it's not really about the details at the end of the day. It's about the identity, right? It's about the community, which is a lot of things. That's what politics is too, right?

It's not about the policy, it's about the identity. That's something that like a lot of people clearly need. And I don't know, maybe if I think if we lived in a world where it was more socially acceptable to do that without calling it religion, then more people would do it, right? I think you could get the exact same thing signing up for fucking, you know, flying spaghetti monster or Satanism, you know, like any one of these like not really a religion, but still a community. sort of things. But it's kind of, you know, it's kind of socially ostracized. It's not really, like, it's not really seen as a norm, whereas pretending to believe in you surviving your own death and all the, in that God's watching you masturbate, that's more normal. So people do that. Uh-huh. Yeah. I guess I just, yeah, I just can't relate because I've never lived in a

space where that is normal and like just growing up. It's just not really part of the conversation we did like religious studies and speak to religious people but it's just it's different i think um in the uk at least where i am um yeah i like i like thinking about it especially like how if how it's manifesting in these online spaces um but like yeah how do we get here what way oh um the the fact we do form these micro communities and just these patterns of needing a group identity, needing to find your in-group. And there's just, everyone has that innate want to need, even someone like me who is not religious, but feeling like that itch or like something's missing, especially like, I look

around my local communities and it's sort of like insular and about like a single person, whereas that's kind of like, yeah, I need my money for my range rover and I don't care about the society I'm in that I'm driving around is just about me, mine, which, I don't know, it doesn't seem like that attitude is manifesting in healthy ways

as far as like, these social contagions and sicknesses that seem to be, I don't know, like people are going crazy out there in ways that the internet seems to have enabled. Yeah, it's definitely not making it better for a good chunk of people. Yeah

Yeah Because then you can It's why Things like flat earth Are like being talked about again I remember being taught about how absurd That was like in primary school Like yep

People used to think it was flat When we didn't know much Compared to now Well now they have a platform To find other people that think That is the status quo And I don't know

Yeah that's their in group That's their sense of community is people that don't understand globes. Yeah. And like just the, I feel like that's why conspiracy theories and things like that are also so popular too. People build in groups around them.

Exactly. And again, it's more about the identity at this point than it is about the actual substance. Yeah, it's almost like it doesn't even matter what it, yeah. And like just the dissonance of that.

I don't know. It's crazy to watch. like an observe, but like I just feel like I don't know where I, what part I play in it, where I sit and all this mess. It's like fascinating to watch. Well, you've been to two furry conventions already. Third time's the charm. I mean, you, the furry community is like a great community in the sense that like, you don't

even really have to be a furry to just hang out with furies. Well, as far as like, yeah, accepting friendly, lovely people who aren't judging you, it's definitely from my experience of it, a nice environment for that. That's like quite unique because a lot of the time they're like clicky in groups are quite, I don't know, they've got quite a filtering process, you know? Like you have to be, you have to check these certain boxes or whatever to be in it. So I don't know, I find it fascinating, but there's something scary and sad. too.

Yeah. Where it takes us, I guess. Another parallel with religion. Fucking anybody can be afraid. You can just call yourself one and I guess you're, that's what you, you are. Yeah. So does that answer the question? I feel like we went.

What was the question? It was like, it was about calling us nihilists. Why are we nihilists or don't believe in God? I don't believe in God because I, I don't have any. reason to. To ask the question as if it's a given that that should be something considered when, you know, like why don't I believe in, what was the analogy? Like a teacup, a magical teacup orbiting the sun right now that like nobody can see.

Yes, the spaghetti monster argumentally, right. You could be asking that question. Why don't I believe in any number of gods? why don't I believe in Zeus right again the same thing I was talking about with uh because people are normalized

to like an existing concept of religion people think that you necessarily need religion for certain things and that same idea of just what people are normalized to is the reason why people think that the default is like god or like that that's that that's like an equal playing field quest as you know not right as as if as if that's like the default thing to be even considering but yeah just the idea that the the religion you believe in is highly affected by where you're born in the world you know so in America you're probably

Christian if you're like in India you're probably Hindu like that that speaks to something to me kind of like intuitively yeah it's a cultural thing so I and then yeah going back to the ancient world and it's like yeah the Romans like they they believe like a their own kind of warped version of what the Greeks believed and it was like their own stories and myth and I see why it was created I guess socially it like organizes groups um but like it doesn't personally bring me any peace because it's like well which one's the right one then like what I'm not about blind faith and it like come on show me like I would believe

if I could see something, if like an astronaut was like in space and like met some dude in the clouds and was like, yo, I made you. I'm the Prometheus god. Then like, okay, maybe I would worship the alien dude who's like made us or whatever. But I don't know, you can't prove a negative like that. Um, maybe. In fact, that seems more likely to me that there's some kind of alien thing going on than like a, an abstract idea of a all-knowing God thing. Yeah, or like a simulation. or anything like literally anything like I think I think that people naturally want to believe that they survive their own deaths and that's you know like a big driving factor it's just people kind of tell themselves

things yeah that's why it seems to manifest from whatever this kind of goes into the dream movie we watched with like where consciousness comes from and where this self-awareness like manifest from and it seems like that is like an obvious coping mechanism to make it more if you can look to the future and you can project death or something or an end to your experience then you need something to counteract that

or address it to calm the anxiety of it. Copium. The copium, yeah, we'll just see. The copium is literally built into our DNA it seems. Well, I mean, like, what are the two strongest urges

in the human body? Like the two, the most like innate instincts that we have are fear of death and just reproduction. Those two things, right? So, like, you can't control your sexuality, right? And you can't control being afraid of death. I mean, to some extent, maybe. But, like, that's always, like, 99.9% of people, it's, right?

like yeah it's the strongest urge we have so of course people are going to make up stories and try to comfort themselves and pretend it's not actually happening yeah i don't know how we got there but um i also like thinking about that as far as like storytelling is concerned and why it's so so like human to do it that's what like myths are it's uh whether you like it or not why uh characters is like the Joker and the like superheroes and stuff they are like a current myth type stories that we spread and children dress up as and are obsessed with it's just not through like a religious lens although people treat a lot of these IPs like religions you know star wars superiors um a lot that behavior is like pretty similar to be honest um there's a movie called uh

zeitgeist which was in the same generation of like loose change where it was just like released on the internet conspiracy movie sort of thing it's from 2007 and there's like three parts to it and the overarching kind of like the the the main takeaway from it is very like oh there's like a bunch of people trying to control you and like literally the the second act is just loose change just being like 9-11 was an inside job and be but but but but right um but the first third of this movie the act one makes a very compelling and interesting commentary on religion as a whole and it talks about and i the reason i'm saying this out loud on this podcast is because i kind of want someone to like fact check me on it because i'm interested in it

And I want to know if like what they're saying is bullshit Do you remember what the general gist was? Basically the gist of it is that if you trace back similarities between religions that theoretically would have nothing to do with each other You can see a lot of like Similar dates and similar themes and similar ideas And then basically the gist of it is oh they were just talking about the sun And they were talking about these stars here

And then over time it's just talking about these stars here and then over time it just you know the telephone game people just wound up taking them too literally and none of this was actually literal i guess maybe right like it's a really interesting yeah we are like ancient societies would yeah they would pray to the rain god or whatever or uh things that help them yeah yeah and then you just see it it makes that connection with like modern religions as well, just being like, oh, okay, well, Jesus, son, the 12 disciples are like the 12 constellations or whatever, and then born of a virgin star in the east, like all of these things are just literally talking about constellations. I want someone to watch that and do like a deep

dive or some research into it, because I just don't have the time right now. But I find that very interesting. Even so everybody else take with a grain of salt, the rest of the movie after the first part delves into some conspiracy stuff and I almost feel bad

talking about this movie on the podcast because I don't know how many people are going to be radicals. Well, because I feel like I'm at least able to watch things critically and, you know, not take everything at face value.

and even if something makes like a compelling argument that I don't necessarily like treat it as fact and that I do your whole world of you. Yeah, and that I'm able to look at and you know, understand counter arguments to things like the 9-11 inside job stuff, right? And you know, I've been especially in the past like decade been very interested in the psychology of,

people that kind of fall down into these weird conspiracy rabbit holes and understanding them better. So, if anybody's gonna watch this, take it with a great assault. Also, if you watch it on YouTube, half of the movie is like blurred in fucking post for some reason.

I don't know why. So maybe don't watch the YouTube version. It has quite a few ratings on IMDB. Way more than Butt Boy. Yeah. Yeah, this was like, this was a relatively popular at the time. Interesting.

Yeah, the first third of it is really compelling to me. Yeah, I like the idea of the sun kind of being a symbol for God. And like, we, again, going back to that dream conversation with the idea of like humans, we like creating things, we make things, we foster things. It makes sense to project that onto our environment, onto what we see. and something like the sun which warms you. And if you had no concept of what the sun is. Yeah, exactly.

If you're trying to build like a world. Yeah, it warms you. It makes things grow. Yeah. It is like the creator of life. Uh-huh. Or whatever you want to say. Um,

our entire conscious experience is like built out of a need to tell ourselves a narrative, right? Uh-huh. What makes up you, your identity and the stories you tell yourself, right? That's just an illusion, right? It's you having a narrative. Like what they were talking about in waking life. Like you have to tell yourself a story to connect the little child in the photo to the adult that you are today. Right?

You have to like make those connections to be able to even associate those two things. Yeah. but then like think about the most popular narratives are normally the most over the top violent these certain themes that repeat you can imagine them getting more and more you know like the chinese whispers type thing yeah it just gets more and more exaggerated this detail is uh expanded on this one's left out and we're talking thousands and thousands of years so yeah who knows what it started as it probably was something simple and it's elaborate books and narratives now yeah now we got but boy the zenith of all narrative yeah yeah it's why I'm drawn to like

stories and storytelling anyway um even if I don't get that like profound I guess sense of meaning or peace from them they're still sort of stories to me but yeah do you think we've gotten all the juice out of that one we can go to a movie one yeah question two uh the big scorp one says this

there seems to have been some kind of shift in the Hollywood landscape with autos having way more of a presence like Sean Baker the Safty brothers and Robert Eggers then there are directors with significant followings like Jim Cummings and Damien Leone large budget movies also seem to have more freedom than before do you agree

that there even has been a significant change. And if so, what caused it? And do you feel some level of excitement? I agree with everything except that part where you said large budget movies have more freedom than before. Like, that's not true. Yeah, I don't think that's true either. Yeah. That seems categorically untrue.

In fact, with that whole joker discussion, that was part of what made it stood out was the fact that he was given Carte Blanche with $200 million, which is fucking insane. Which is completely crazy. It's unheard of. Yeah. Unless you're like, because of them, no. maybe or something exactly he could do it but he's proven he can get like returns so maybe that's what they thought they had on their hands that's wb but also working with as we said it should have made a billion dollars just with the word joker and the title so took too long maybe

if it came out in 2020 yeah maybe um yeah i mean um the these smaller directors having followings um I don't know if... It's true that it's easier now to make a movie and get your movie seen than ever before. And so I think that there's more voices to be paying attention to at this point in time. I don't know if those voices are necessarily more prevalent or that there's more people paying attention to them than before. I guess maybe, you know, with the internet, there's more... of a conversation you can see in like, I don't know, like, if you're on the movies subreddit, people will know who, um, like, uh, Ari Aster is, but they might not know who Jim

Cummings is, right? They'll know, a good chunk of people will know who the Safty brothers are. But I think that, like, I don't know, even if you go back to, like, the 90s, it was also kind of a niche thing, you know, Kevin Smith's first movie came out, you know, you know, know like that how big of a hit was that you know there were filmmakers that people were paying attention to back in the day as well um but it was just like a different medium in terms of like how to pay attention to things just the internet wasn't as baked in yeah it doesn't feel like an enormous Hollywood ending shift you know when you still look at like i just got up like the top 10 films right as far as box office is concerned of of 2024 in some

side out to Depo Wolverine, Despicable Movie 4, Doom Part 2, Godzilla, X-Confu Panda 4, Beetlejuice, Bad Boys Rider, the Kingdom of the Planet, the Apes, Twisters. Maybe if, like, Civil War was in there and other, I know, smaller movies, like, long legs or something, then maybe? It's not like those aren't successful movies, but I feel like there is sort of a disproportionate representation with, like, the way films are talked about online, it doesn't always mean it's going to be a big industry changing thing. Like everyone,

if that were true, then Blade Runner 2049 would be enormous. That would have made a billion bucks, you know, but it was actually kind of a flop as far as making money is concerned and how much they invested into it. But there are still more, like, people are really excited for Nosferatu coming out.

Yeah, people are excited for Nosferatu, like probably the same crowd that was excited for, like, Bo is afraid, right? Like, there are directors to pay attention to and there's film enthusiasts that know which directors are doing exciting things right now. But at the same time, the average person doesn't know who

these people are. So I don't know if it's like a huge shift. No, and Bo's afraid like bombed, right? Yeah, Bo's afraid bombed. It definitely wasn't enough just Ari Aster's name to get enough people to make up for the amount they spent. Yeah, maybe there's, there are more avenues now. Like in the 70s, for example, like, you just don't have that choice of making a short YouTube video with a hook that gets notices by a studio and then you suddenly have $15 million to make your horror movie or whatever, you know? Yeah. But I don't think it's like a recent thing that's being enhanced or exacerbated by that necessarily. It's moving in that direction, but it's just not quite there yet. Yeah.

But it's also like the everyone having a camera in their pocket means that there are probably more films than ever being made. So you also have to filter through that as well. So yeah. All right. One more. Let's end on this one from No Emphasis 2902. Movies have existed in just a little over a century. And since then, different technical, technological aspects of filmmaking have been adapted or streamlined, such as lighting, acting style. CGI, Cinematography, and so on. What do you think is the next progress to be made along these lines? Is it just waiting for better technology, a new way of acting, a new genre, like modern MCU films? Or is there something unknown that could revolutionize or even antiquate filmmaking as a whole?

I mean, probably AI, even if nobody wants to hear that. What would that do? It would still be making movies with that structure, with that. look. I guess it would lower the barrier to entry. I mean, yeah, I'm not saying AI the whole movie. It's a tool. And like, if we use AI to help with some of the, you know, procedurally generated or, how do I describe this? For some of the very difficult things to do in like animation or even like deep faking or, you know, like some of those like, there are some movies where characters or actors or actors.

would be de-aged, right? You can use AI for those things, and in the next five to ten years, it'll probably look pretty good, right? Like, maybe right now it doesn't look great, but there are things that you can kind of streamline and not have to spend as much money on, and, you know, even if you have the same artist working on it,

like they would be using it as a tool in their software. Like, you have AI tools in Photoshop right now. Yeah, I guess it has the potential In the same way that giving everyone a phone with a camera in it lowers the barrier to entry to anyone making video Yeah I suppose you could potentially do a similar thing with that So yeah, I can make my own it looks like a big budget thing

But because of the AI that can replicate special effects or whatever And do things that I can't do without years of training Yeah Then maybe I don't think we've fully like grasped exactly what the best route is for what parts of what industries could be streamlined by AI

I don't think we've grasped exactly how it's going to be useful in its best version I guess but it's something that's definitely going to be used yeah because it won't be designed to be the best version it's not won't be designed to be the best version it's just designed to cut costs, basically.

Yeah, I mean, it depends who's doing it. Like, fuck, it, like, this is another one of those things where it's like, yeah, when you have a cynical soulless corporation and their only goal is to save money, then they're going to do cost cutting. They've been doing, like, fucking AMC, giving notes to the, uh, Frank Derbant saying,

can't they just, can't they just hear zombies instead of seeing them? Because the makeup's expensive. Like, AI isn't where this started, right? Like, this is a problem with the existing, like financial structures that exist within art, much less of a problem of the actual technology, right? So if let's say you have, you know, an actual artist who only has like $10,000,

but they're able to use AI as a tool to help make their vision more fully realized, and it looks good, right? That's the qualifier right now. A lot of AI looks bad. but if in the future there's parts of it that look good and that's the only way they were able to make their film and they're you know like I I see that as a way that someone can use it as a tool and it would be a good thing for that person right it just depends on what it's doing it depends on how it's done mm-hmm but even then there feels like um technology has a ceiling to as far as like how it can enhance your film right well like even if you had AI that could just poop out any anything you could dream of through prompts. Yeah, maybe. It would still be perhaps a two-hour narrative with a certain flow to it, with a certain,

I don't know, people know what a movie is, like as far as dialogue changes, pacing changes, expectations change over the 100 years. But everyone kind of knows what a movie is, you know. I feel like the technology, the storytelling is enhanced, in my mind, like more through, something interactive. Yeah, maybe. VR and whatnot. I did this.

When I was at BFI, I did this interactive, it was like a VR experience thing that someone had made. It was supposed to, it was called like the ADHD experience or something. And that was kind of a interesting use of technology to tell a story. And it was like playing anecdotes. Well, what I was seeing was like these 3D buildings and like people appear. and the amygdala filled the room and was like, text was flying everywhere and it was like interacting with me. And it was like, this is like something like different new.

Yeah. There's like a completely different format entirely, whereas like the film from the 40s is still a film. You know, it's still like ABC. I don't know. I don't know how far technology on its own can take it. You just got to get more, more innovative, I guess, with the writing, with the, getting experimental with it. That's the whole fun of being experimental. I mean, yeah, at the end of the day, you just need a talented artist to be using those tools.

The tools can change over time. It's the talent that makes the film, right? And an idea. That's one of the things that, like, Hollywood suffers with. Everything has been done, everything. So, like, you have to have a good idea. But boy. You know, you have to have a spin on something.

You have to be a butt boy. Just the word boy in there too. It's that alliteration. I think that's what does it. But boy. The way you ought to move your mouth. It's just... So good.

Yeah, I think that's it. I want them to release in Yali 2's VR movie. So I can... it at home with my VR headset. It was like at con in 2020 or some shit. And it has great ratings on IMDB.

And there's apparently like no way to get it. Somebody if you we need to preserve art. Okay. Somebody leak it in a video game. I need it.

Is that Radiohead one available? Is that... I don't know. Because they did one too, right? Like... Okay, no, I found it on Epic Games. Yeah, fucking show me the thing. And piss.

Yeah. Lower the barrier to entry normally is a good thing for creative people who be cut off from, you know, not knowing someone in the industry or not being a NEPA baby or not being wealthy enough or whatever. All right. That's really a positive I can see. If if the guy from diving bell in the butterfly

had AI to help his locked-in syndrome help interpret what he was trying to say he could have written that book quicker maybe he could make a movie like that you never know it's okay it was a 2017 film

and it's short it's seven minutes release it on Steam you fucks you ignorant fucks i don't know if it's interactive i think it might just be like a 360 movie or something i have no idea actually oh it says right no actually i don't know allowing individuals to walk in a vast space and thoroughly live a fragment of the refugees person okay so you can like walk through it superficial lines between subject and bystander are blurred and bound together it's seven minutes long put it on steam Oh.

Fuck everybody. All right, you want to recommend a movie? I think questions are over. Yeah, we've done our questions. Thank you. And there's actually a film I mentioned last episode. But boy. I don't think you've seen.

But boy. But I'd quite like to revisit and have a discussion around 2002, Treasure Planet by Ron Clements and John Musker, their dream project. Have you seen that one? It's a real... I must have seen some of it, but I don't know if I've ever watched

the full movie from start to finish and it wouldn't surprise me if I did and didn't remember. Okay, yeah. So I don't know if I've seen it. Let's go. Okay, it was like right towards the end of Disney 2D animation dying.

Yeah, they killed it. Pretty much. So, yeah, let's have a discussion about that. Awesome. to Treasure Planet. Going for the TP. All right, if you don't want to be spoiled for Treasure Planet 2002, then watch it before the next episode.

These episodes come out every two weeks. You can listen to them early. Go to Sardonicast.com, sign up for premium. Also, patreon.com slash Sardonicast. Also, you fucking members on YouTube, okay? Do that. You listen early. support this show. It's cool. You'll be cool if you do it. We've also got a Sardonicast

Highlights channel. Go subscribe to that, hit the bell, do whatever. I don't know. If I can live your own life. I'm a nihilist. Nothing matters actually. Never mind. This is a nihilist podcast now. Actually, don't do anything actually. You can. All right, happy butt boy, everybody. Thanks for listening. Yeah, bye. mean.