Sardonicast - Sardonicast 198: Caught Stealing, To Boldly Flee

Episode Date: September 15, 2025

Listen early and ad-free at https://sardonicast.com or https://www.patreon.com/Sardonicast. Channel members can visit the community posts tab for an unlisted ad-free version! Website: https://sardonicast.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Sardonicast Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/sardonicast Twitter: https://twitter.com/sardonicast Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/sardonicast.bsky.social Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sardonicast Sardonicast Highlights: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8AhJ0bzQgs5fb9m_ZCRqkw/featured Adam's channel: https://www.youtube.com/@YMS Alex's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/IHEOfficial Jake's channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ManCarryingThing Jake's movie channel: https://www.youtube.com/@womancarryingman Alex's Twitter: https://twitter.com/IHE_OFFICIAL Adam's Twitter: https://twitter.com/2gay2lift Adam's bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/yms.bsky.social Jake's twitter: https://x.com/ManCarrying Jake's bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/mancarryingthing.bsky.social Adam's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/YMS Jake's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mancarryingthing Intro music by: https://www.youtube.com/user/anUnkindnessvideo Timestamps: 0:00 Intro, Episode 200 poll instructions 11:15 Caught Stealing 51:09 To Boldly Flee 2:07:03 Questions 2:37:39 Recommendation + outro

Three, two, one. We're not doing the supervillain shuffle! There's a quote from Cot Stealing. I'm Adam from your movie sex. This is a Sardana cast. Damn. That was a good impression. I'm Alex from my H.E.

I'm going to say, Sir, Lankara has been hit. Remember that? Remember that moment? Mm-hmm. Yeah. I don't know. I'm Jake from Man Caring Thing. I don't have a quote today.

I don't think I deserve it. Oh, well, I'm here to tell you you do deserve it. Oh, that's sweet. You deserve everything coming to you. Oh, that's ominousness. No, it's a good thing. I mean, I didn't imply anything negative from that. I don't know what you're talking about.

What if it's bad stuff coming to me? Well, maybe don't have bad stuff coming to you then. Okay. Okay, we live in a meritocracy. If you sure do. If you have bad stuff coming to you, you fucked up at some point. That's your, that's on you. People want to be homeless, actually.

That's a great point. Wow, we're off on a great foot for the Tobolifli episode. Yes. No, it's perfect. Things are moving. Episode 200 is coming up. It's close. Right?

only two more episodes until episode 200 you know what that means we have to have we have to have figured out the recommendation by the next episode so we can say it at the end so everybody listening here if you're a patron you're a member you're hearing this early you're going to get these instructions before other people if you're listening to it public on the public date you only have 24 hours okay but everybody listen we are doing episode 200 polls. There will be two films chosen that we talk about. And y'all get to decide Bofodem.

So I figured out a way that YouTube members can also participate. And so it's going to go like this. I'm going to create the poll thread on Reddit that anyone can access. I'm going to do that, I guess, today, which is in the past. No matter when you're listening to it, it's already up. So you can check Reddit. And in that thread, everybody leaves suggestions for what movie they would like us to talk about. Don't be ridiculous.

We're not going to do an eight-hour-long movie. Okay? We get to veto it if you're being ridiculous. And then make sure there are no duplicates. So maybe Control F for your suggestion, if you're unsure if somebody else is already put it because the way I'm going to count it, I'm just going to organize it by most upvoted, right? And then the top four of those in the subreddit will then go to the YouTube members poll because there are only a maximum of four poll options for YouTube members, which I discovered

doing a test. And then the YouTube members will decide that film. At the same time, there will also be by the time you hear this it should already exist a poll thread in the Discord that only patrons can access so if you have your Patreon

account linked to your Discord you should automatically get a role that allows you into the patron channel on the Discord basically the same way we've been doing the YMS watch along's polls

for some time. I love how labyrinthin this process is. It's like the U.S. election system. Yeah. Like Reddit is the electors and everything. Like it's very complicated, and I appreciate that because I feel like it's going to result in the dumbest choices ever. I mean, I really feel bad for the people recommending.

I'm getting scared. It's not that complicated. It's not that complicated. If you're a member, then it's Reddit. than members, okay? If you're a patron, then it's Discord, then Patreon. And if you don't, if you don't want to, yeah, okay, if you don't want to even type a suggestion and you only want to vote on the top answers that other people typed, just you don't have to do anything except just vote on the poll when the poll exists either in the community tab on YouTube or in the Patreon, like you'll get

an email or whatever on Patreon. Everyone gets to have a say. Everyone gets involved. Anyway, kind of, kind of. So I hadn't. So I hadn't. figured out how to incorporate the website members. Oh. And so if let's say we talk to the website guy and they're like... We have a website guy? We have a website guy. We have a website guy.

Nice. Let's say we talk to them and they're like, oh, it's easy. Here's how you do it. Then we will give our website members a freebie at one point in the future. But just not, we're not going to do three movies on episode 200 anyway. So, sorry for now. Anyway, let me just finish explaining this so that people know how this works. Very simple.

Be lucky that I'm organized, okay? I am very grateful you're doing this because I would just... You're welcome. I'd ask people to mail things in physically. I had to figure this shit out, okay? I have this figured out. Don't worry. I've got it under control.

So if you're a patron and you want to be suggesting the initial films from scratch, do that in the Discord the thread's already up if you're listening to this publicly and you're not a member or a patron you have 24 hours since this video is published you have just this day on September

15th close right yeah that's when it's published to join either as a member or as a patron you'll still get access patron you can access the Discord members it doesn't really matter because the Reddit's public.

There's nothing linking YouTube members to Reddit. Anyway, you have 24 hours to do that. On September 16th, on Tuesday, September 16th, the top results from both the Discord and the Reddit will be moved into their final poll place. So on the Patreon, we're taking it from the Discord. on the Reddit or sorry on the members we're taking it from the Reddit on the members there's only four on Patreon there might be 10 or something and there will be 24 hours where you can vote okay so September 16th Tuesday September 16th you have 24 hours to vote on that shit and then we will be reviewing the top two movies from each of those platforms or sorry the top one from each so one from members on YouTube and one from Patreon.

And those are the two films that we will talk about on episode 200. And we will announce them at the end of episode 199. You are free to communicate and coordinate. So if let's say, you know,

the people on Reddit are like, well, what types of movies are at the top of the Discord thing right now? You can let them know. If you want to coordinate like, oh, we should have one serious good movie and one funny meme movie or whatever, feel free to do that. They're not capable of planning that.

No, people are, you know, communities can be organized. They're going to rig the polls, man. You underestimate the amount of autism in our family. Okay, I trust them to be able to do shit. I want to mention one more thing because this is very important. So similarly to how I'm only counting the upvotes on the Reddit, I'm only counting the hearts on the discord. Okay?

So if you see the answer there already, heart it. I'm going to count, it's going to be the ones with the most hearts. And I'm going to ignore if there's a duplicate. So control F, make sure if you want, if you're trying to add your vote,

make sure it's not already something that exists in there. Otherwise, you're doing a disservice to it, right? Um, and then yeah, yeah, so you fucking, Godspeed,

If you want to get on the Patreon, we have a discount code. Code Normie for 15% off. I'm not even kidding. Capital N-O-R-M-I-E for 15% off. I believe it works for both the annual and monthly, but I think you're saving more on the annual. So if you're listening to this right now for the public right away, do this shit now, okay?

You'll get in the fucking Discord with the patron brawl thing. You have, you have, you literally, literally just today. And then, and then the final polls, okay? Final polls on the 16th. Winners chosen on the 17th. And then we're recording episode 199 on the 18th. So very, very packed. I'm going to have to remember to do all these things.

Hi, post everybody. Godspeed to you, Adam. Oh, you're welcome. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Did I mention everything? I think I did.

Sounds right. Yeah. Sounds good. I have faith in our electoral system. You know, it's one of the most, like, robust and not... It is robust. Yeah, it's robust and accurate. It's one of the most accurate elections that...

Yeah. Hasn't happened yet. But it's, you'll, you'll see when the answer, when the winners come out. No one will challenge the winner. Yeah, when the winners come out, you'll see. As a democracy, yeah. Yeah, and a meritocracy. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, close. Oh, boy, we saw caught stealing. Oh, also, yeah. Sorry. I'm, I just, I do want to stress, the likelihood of, let's say, Alex and I doing a, uh, like stream watch along to one of the movies is higher if there's a meme type unsurious movie for that because if it's it if it is a serious movie then we're probably not going to do it in that uh like we're not going to do shinler's litch

live stream watch along right yeah yeah give us one meme you know it was it was good last time sponge bob and possession yeah if there's a tiebreaker there's three house easy we can vote you know so yeah all right cot stealing that was so That was a long time to explain. I'm so sorry. They don't call me thoroughbred for nothing. All right, Cots stealing. For good elections.

All right, Cot Stealing. Who goes first? Hmm. What about you, Darren Aronofsky? Who's been silent this entire time? Darren's back. Oh, thanks. I forgot he used to be on the podcast.

Thank you. I don't know if you sold the ads for this movie. but I kept seeing them the last few months when I was going to the cinema and I thought it looked pretty bad actually yeah yeah me too thought it was like what are they going for with this this doesn't look like anything else in his filmography which isn't inherently bad but this seemed like quite a swing in a different direction to what we used to from him especially from a comedic angle it looked more like a guy richie project just with uh Aronofsky's name on it um I was quite surprised actually by how

it came together. This is probably in my top 10 of the year so far. Whoa. Yeah, I have my issues with it. We can get into more in spoilers, I guess. It's more to do some tonal stuff with the way it concludes, but I had a lot of fun with how unpredictable it was, the energy it had, how it is different for Aronofsky.

It is probably his most lighthearted film, and that's not to say there isn't some misery in there, because there certainly is, but I thought this was, surprisingly good. Hmm. Okay. Jake. Yeah.

So I, I'm less hot on the movie. I did think it was enjoyable and well done. And my viewers, our viewers on Woman Carrying Man were roasting me because Nadia really liked it and I kind of didn't love it. But I'm still giving it a pretty, I'm not going to rate it now because I know that it is against the rules. to give my reading early. Fair and free elections.

But let's just say it is in the Normie masterpiece realm of scores. Okay, weird. Yeah, affectionately. As then you would call it a Norma Masterpiece? I don't even know what this means. It's like, woke. I just don't even know what Norfolknostics means anymore.

Oh, dude, we've ruined it in a very, in a very short amount of time. It's ruined. But actually, it's great. It's great. No, I'm going to keep using it. You know, this is kind of, of an interesting film

because it is like a throwback to like post-Tarantino 90s like light-hearted irreverent crime films which is a genre I like but there were a lot of bad ones made and I've seen a lot of

annoying ones and the tone is hard to capture and I don't think that Aronovsky necessarily captures the tone perfectly it did feel like it was swinging from high drama and tragedy and like horrific like violence to like oh this is a cute cat you know it's like funny cat jokes um i there was one particular moment in the movie that we can get into as well as that i thought was kind of egregious and was like why like it just felt like unnecessary um and that kind of turned me off from the plot in general and overall i wish

it was a little more, a little less tidy, you know, especially since it's evoking like a punk and, um, like grungy kind of like 90s crime thrillers. I wish it was a bit, um,

more messy and, and kind of went into unpredictable places. Actually, Alex, I'm surprised, uh, because I,

I had a totally different reaction where I was like, I feel like this is quite predictable. I didn't really like the character arc. Yeah, I didn't really like the character arc for, um, Austin Butler's character. I felt like it was set up in a very like Save the Cat sort of generic screenplay thing.

Like not complete. Like it works. Like I will admit like the it delivers. There are some like crowd pleasing moments in the third act. But there were parts in the film where I was like, man, you could just write the word metaphor on the baseball bat. And it would be, you know, just as subtle in some ways. Like I just, I don't know. I was a little underwhelmed.

I can't deny that it does have some good scenes. There are some like set pieces that are super fun. The filmmaking is like confident and energetic. I just didn't really love how it all came together. Yeah. I liked this movie overall. It wasn't like as my my standard going into it is like, okay, well, if this is better than Noah, I think I'm fine.

You know, because it was clear. Yeah, yeah. It was clear going into it for me that like, this is his attempt at being more like commercially appealing you know is it is a little going a little normie here which is fine but at the same time I guess my biggest issue with it is like I think from him doing that it was more of like almost kind of like a paycheck movie where it didn't really seem like his vision per se when it came to like the camera work it did for sure but it felt like there was like a competing voice in the editing and like tone

and soundtrack decisions because it didn't the the filmmaking didn't like mesh or gel with it as well as someone like Edgar Wright which I felt you know reminded of but it just wasn't really hitting that yeah the filmmaking in of itself wasn't really it it seemed like the tone they decided on after words was kind of like an afterthought. Like it wasn't like it wasn't the intent going into it before each shot was set up or, you know, with with, uh, Aronofsky interpreting the script even. So who knows?

Maybe that's not the case, but that's just generally what it came off as to me. It is based on a book too, right? So maybe it was trying to capture the energy of the book. I wouldn't know for sure. But I don't know. It kind of worked with me.

I liked that it was a, different swing from his filmography. Not all the humor landed, but um, no. I did find, I find it so interesting that I, the egregious moment that I think Jake is getting at is kind of when I was, oh, this is, okay, this isn't treating anyone as sacred. This is, um, right, going in a direction that I didn't really see coming from, like that tone that it seemed like it was going to be from the trailer. Sure. bit more cheesy and lighthearted. It was like, okay, there's, like, pretty high stakes here.

I like this main character. I hadn't been sold on Austin Butler, really, before. In these side characters, but as a lead role, I never even saw Elvis. His interviews just pissed me off too much. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I like Elvis. But I really thought he showed a lot of range.

His character goes through a lot, so he has a lot of moments to show off his chops. He's got great charisma with Zoe Krabbits. Yeah, and he wasn't even my favorite character. I think that probably goes to Matt Smith. Oh, he was great. He was really good. There loads of great, kind of smaller characters. And I just like how, oh man, I don't have to dance around this without.

Yeah, I want to just talk about it. So let's just say spoilers. Yeah. I recommend the movie. Alex recommends the movie. I don't know if Jake recommends the movie. A soft recommend. Soft.

Jake sucks. But we're going in, all right, spoiler time. All right. Yeah. The egregious moment, Jake, I assume, is what they do to Zoe, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Zoe Kravitz. Yeah, she gets killed.

And I felt like I was excited when it happened because I was like, oh, damn, is this going to get like super dark? And I just, I felt like it was trying to, it just kind of used the moment to develop his character in a very, like, formulaic way of like, ah, you need to stop running from. Like, they literally say, like, I think in. multiple scenes like you got to stop running from your past you know just kind of like spelling out the theme of his his character and I it ultimately felt like by the end of the film we're back to like laughing at you know scenes where he's hanging out with the the Hasidic gangsters and

you know eating some soup that's strange to him and it just felt like where is this uh like I just couldn't find it funny anymore after that scene you know what I mean interesting Yeah, but that's my biggest issue with the way it concludes more so. Like him getting their happy ending on the beach with the cat seems too clean almost for how much violence and misery it took to get there, even though I like the character. I like the addiction stuff with him. I like all the baseball stuff on its face, the way it's integrated into the film when he gets injured and it looks like the stitching on a baseball and all this kind of stuff with so much like visual. intent. I love that. Yeah.

Even though, yeah, I just don't care about baseball at all. So the fact that worked for me was quite interesting. But yeah, that conclusion I didn't love. But I kind of like how we got there. I was kind of compelled by the way it was swinging from, oh, that's like genuinely horrifying to then Matt Smith getting hit in the head with a baseball bat and this like lump growing over his head and the way he's acting. was working for me in the Jewish characters.

But I also found it unpredictable. Bad Bunny just showing up and also just being killed really quickly. Twist and turns. It felt quite reminiscent of like a Fargo or Big Lubowski. There's a lot of Coen brothers in there, I think. With yeah, the crime double triple crossing stuff. Yeah, I dug it. Yeah, it's interesting.

I kind of, I agree. and disagree simultaneously. I'm somewhere in the middle here because I also felt that moment, I don't know if I would call it like egregious, but I would call it poorly handled at least for my taste because there is an implication of like, oh shit, this is a serious moment for sure. But like...

It's an escalation, yeah. Yeah, but there's like zero time spent with the character like grieving. in any way and so it's just he's just kind of like moving on and you know maybe they play it as part of the joke like Regina King just seems like completely not empathizing like just very kind of rudely being procedural and asking him more detective questions and stuff but like yeah I don't sure like she's uncaring but like even after it still feels like there's no real moments where actually misses his girlfriend.

It just kind of feels like he repeats the information that the stakes are raised basically. Like, oh, yeah. You know? So, like, it's not that I wasn't able to find things funny after that point. I think it was like the opposite is just I could never find it with the seriousness that it was implying. I could never feel that. Yeah.

The story kind of uses her. Yeah. And it feels a little bit too triumphant in that final scene, you know. Yeah, and that's how I felt about a lot of the scenes and moments, especially in the third act, when the movie's really trying to hammer home, like, the themes and how Austin Butler's changing as a character. Like, I just felt like the structure of the screenplay coming out of the movie, like that scene with Zoe Kravitz dying, I wouldn't be surprised. I need to see it again to make sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if that doesn't happen. exactly midway through the film because in a screenplay you're supposed to have in the midway

some big sea change moment where something, you know, the stakes are raised significantly. And that just felt like, well, well, they kill her. You know, that's a big moment and that's going to develop his character and raise the stakes. And I don't know. I just felt like, especially considering all the craft on display, Austin Butler is so fun to watch. And Zoe Kravitz, they have good chemistry. All the little performers. I mean, Matt Smith is just fantastic.

wish he was in a lot more of the movie. So much fun. Oh, yeah. I just, I just kind of wish it it took a little bit, it just took some risks, you know? That's what, that's all I ask.

It's funny, I didn't even think about who that was. And now you say Matt Smith and all I can think of is fucking Morbius. Like, oh yeah, Morbius. Have so. Morbius.

Boop my pants and then. Have sex. But I don't know, it's so short, though. Like, it's only an hour of 47. Yeah,

I didn't feel long. It moved so quick. And it just felt like he was so constantly in danger and had such little agency. Like a very like Cohen's wrong place, wrong time. Yeah. Messy maelstrom that it felt like to me. He almost didn't have time to even think about the Kravitz thing, which is why I wish maybe there was something towards the end that wasn't,

yeah, didn't have that triumphant feeling. Yeah. But I just feel like the journey to get there, though. And I felt like his arc paid off though, too, especially with the, the driving element with these constant flashbacks to what ruined his high school baseball career

and this vicious car crash that is his fault for the drink driving and everything and the way that is reincorporated with the Sabbath stuff later I thought was brilliant I thought that was one of the better parts of the movie and some of the better humor too the whole that whole scene

with the part the half that isn't Jewish is going to drive like a gag. Yeah, yeah. I didn't even like recognize Vincent Donofrio. Yeah, it was amazing. I also want to clarify, I just thought of this. Like, you know, it's not that I want there to be like a long, drawn out, like, fucking

funeral scene, you know, like, I don't want the montage of I'm sad, you know, kitty consoles him, I'm in bed or whatever. Like, we don't have to see, like, an actual grieving process. It could be subtle. You know, like it could be something like, you know, there's like a shot in drive where you just see like him gripping something harder, right? Like you can you can communicate a level of stress that the character is going through without it needing to be like a huge external thing. You could still communicate that they're suffering internally and not have it take up like a bunch of screen time and be cheesy and, you know, sappy and mopey. No, that's a great point

Or they could even just like slightly less in how extreme it is She could just have been like beaten up or injured Yeah, and she's in the hospital And it's like that's a small change But like tonally that's like It's just less of a heavy burden for the audience to deal with You know in that moment like I don't know It seems like it has like a bit of an identity crisis

Like don't get me wrong I enjoyed the film overall for many of the reasons You're describing Alex you know but yeah the tone is the biggest issue and that's you know probably why it it feels like an afterthought to me just the way that it exists in the film it's like it's it's difficult to find that right balance it's not quite like shoot them up it's not quite running scared it's not quite drive it's not quite after hours like an edgar wright film yeah after hours like trying to balance these tones in the way that it's doing it.

Like you would have to make some sacrifices in one way or the other, you know? I'm not sure. Yeah, that's why I think Alex, I think that you mentioned the Cohen brothers because I, after seeing it, I immediately thought like, oh, the Cohen brothers would have handled this a little better. But again, I was telling my friend about this, like, oh, man, I wish the Cohen brothers made it. And they're like, yeah, well, I wish Christ resurrected me. You know, it's just like, of course you want, like, of course the Cohen brothers would do a better job.

They're the Cohen brothers. Yeah, they could make anything better. Yeah. I mean, you'd have to change like the script, really. Like, you'd have to be a director that says like, okay, no, we're cutting this part out because that doesn't make sense. We're adding this. Well, and that's part of the problem of me complaining about this. And it's like, I'm aware that I also just wanted a different movie.

Like I part of it is like my expectations going in that I just this wasn't the product I wanted necessarily. So that that definitely has an effect on it too. I mean you could say the same that anyone's experience with the movie they didn't enjoy it. Right. Like I wanted a different one. It doesn't mean it's bad. Yeah. Well, I think most people I think way more people actually have that experience when they watch something. Like I more than people are willing to admit like I think at least 50% of it is like what are you expecting when you go in? Yeah, but I mean, that's not that doesn't invalidate your experience at all.

No, no. Yeah. No, absolutely not. I just think it has a, it heavily weighs on how a person reviews a film usually more so than we like to admit. Yeah. When I went into Inside Out too, I was expecting like fucking. breathless by Jean-Luc Godard

you know and I was like, why? That's why I value a rewatch so much except I feel like those expectations then quelled and then it's does it hold up and that was one of the things I was thinking about

after I saw this was I'd quite like to see that again actually because it just felt so well made and I just love that time so things like the element of him having this kidney surgery right after he gets like attacked by the Russian dudes who has this extreme physicality where he's like head-boating him like a goat which I thought was really fun but yeah it ends up with him having this surgery to take his kidney out and then within two days he's like sprinting around the city and yeah doing pull-ups

and whatnot yeah and as you're kind of getting out with the Zoe Kravitz death. It didn't have the tone to just write that off or hand wave it particularly to me. So that did bug me a little bit, stopped it from being potentially as good as it could be. But I don't know. I still, it just moved so quickly. I found that the action and the character is so enjoyable. It just didn't ruin the full experience for me.

Although I do hear where you're coming from. It's definitely flawed. And I don't think it's nearly Aronovsky's best at all. Not as the worst. But as far as like a fun romp, it's, it is good. It's a fun time. Loads of great moments. Those are great characters.

Laura Dern, jump scare in the credits was fun. Hell yeah. That was so much fun. I'd be curious to listen out to the phone calls. You know what's funny? Yeah. I was, that was like not a surprise to me at all in the film. For whatever reason, I could identify her voice like immediately.

I was like, oh, Laura Dern is the mom. Yeah, I'm just Laura Dernbrand. I don't know what it is. Yeah, I wasn't even thinking about it because there was that intentional choice of not showing the mother character, even though she's so prevalent throughout the film where he's like calling her every day. It's a big part of his character that he has this connection with her. And then the whole end credits were actually really fun, the little 2D animation with the cat, little gags here and there. I liked what I was trying to do with that. I found it to be like just not quite at the level of like animation that I would want.

out of something being so weird, you know? Like, do the exact same thing, but like smooth out the motions a bit more is what I wanted. Like, it seemed a little rushed. It seemed like whoever made it needed more time. I think it was okay for the credits. If it was in the movie, like, proper, I think I'd agree. I mean, that's part of the movie, especially when you're doing it so stylistically, intentionally, you know, it's still part of the movie.

In my opinion, I don't know. What's it with movies not ending before the credits anymore? I mean, sinners had this. Marvel. Is it just Marvel? That's just we're like, I'm afraid to leave now. Like after a movie ends, I'm like, oh, there are going to be some extra scenes? Yeah.

I guess it's Marvel. Why did he smile at the end? Do you like go in the water? Because he has money. He like left the cat or something. I wasn't sure what, I wasn't sure if there was like it was like a. implying something. It felt to me that he'd kind of,

he turned away the drink at the bar. He felt like he'd, you know, got some self-control over his situation, leaned into it instead of, um, running from it, which is kind of his ongoing character floor throughout the movie, where he's like, literally running to the point where, and with the, like,

little Russian go-to-tacker dude, with the payoff of him just kind of taking him out and one punch, is kind of like a symbol of that. that where he stops and fights and deals with it and actually finds that it's not as difficult as maybe he thought it might be because he's like this whole thing control his life. He's in such a state. He's in such a low point. And I thought there were going to be more consequences to him relapsing on alcohol after

the surgery, to be honest, because you obviously can't drink and the same way that he used to after removing a kidney. But I just... Yeah, I wonder if the implication is that's why he got way more drunk than he otherwise would have, sort of thing, why it like ended in him... Yeah, but it will like

kill you, right, if you don't have a kidney. And there wasn't really a consequence to it, but again, the execution of that I thought was so excellent the way it was edited together, the camera movements throughout that, so kind of discombobulating. Yeah.

It's just so... well made. Yeah, the directing is fantastic. The editing is fantastic when it comes to like where each shot ends, right? Like the stitching of the actual video footage. But the editing, the only, yeah, the part where it feels conflicting is like both, I guess, the script and also just like the personality sort of edits where, you know, they even have that moment where, you know, there's a closer shot of the cat. And then you hear that like, ding, sound effect when the cat like kind of blinks. But like, it just didn't seem that intentional from how it was shot.

Like, if I was shooting that with the intent of that being in the editing process, you would almost want to get like a take where like the blink of the cat would like seem a bit more pronounced. In a way, if that makes sense, it was kind of, there was something off about it. Like, it wasn't framed as close as like, it should have been, in my opinion, for that type of, like, intentful thing. But I don't know, maybe my frame of reference is just like Edgar Wright. And I'm like, okay, well, this is, you know, it feels like an Edgar Wright moment in the editing, but it doesn't look like it was shot that way.

And so it's just, that might just be a part of the confusion. Do you think maybe some higher ups were like, hey, let's highlight the comedy here. Let's make sure people remember to laugh. It's either that it was like an afterthought or there was a miscommunication or misunderstanding between Aronovsky and, you know, whoever wound up taking over for like the editing process. I don't know. It doesn't feel like it's one of his passion projects. at the end of the day.

No, no. It felt like director for hire and there was a script available and this is like a hot script. Yeah. And I'm glad I could still feel him in it. You know, there's a lot of his personality in the film in terms of how it's shot. And I also love that, you know, at the end of the day, it's successfully an R-rated action movie. You know, I never felt like, oh, yeah, it's fucking PG-13 nonsense. You know, where it's just, where it's just only boring.

Well, that's why people should see it. Like, more movies like this need to be in theaters, you know, mid-budget, like, just genre and stuff. Wait, just go check it out. Yeah. Well, were there many people in your guys' screenings? Because it was pretty dead for mine. I saw it, like, on the weekend. It's the first weekend it's out.

And it just felt like, what was it, was it advertising? Was it, I don't know, because it's got, like, some big names in here. And it's a pretty modest budget, too. So about 40 million or so. But it's not really doing it so far. Yeah, I did like a Saturday 2 p.m. show. The theater was like half full. So there were people.

I am less than half full, but there were some people. But yeah, it doesn't look like it's going to be making a ton of money. There's nothing really about it that like I could imagine spreading word of mouth. It's not quite good enough to have that, yeah, virality to it. Yeah. Because it's, you know, it doesn't even really feel like, oh, a Aronovsky movie. It's for people that love Aronovsky. No.

So. It's no, the whale. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the whale. That, that movie was largely successful. No pun intended from Brendan. I never saw The Whale, actually.

I liked it, actually. Oh, you haven't seen it. Yeah, I was about to ask. I've seen very few Aronovsky films, actually. Oh, shit. Have you seen Requiem for a dream? Nope. Oh my God.

Damn. I have not seen Requiem. Haven't seen Black Swan. Haven't seen Noah. Haven't seen... Wrestler. I haven't seen any Aeronovs. Actually, what have I seen?

Have you seen Pie? No. I haven't seen Pie, actually. Have you seen The Fountain? No. I don't think I've... What have you seen? I haven't seen Mother.

Is this the first Aronovsky film? I've seen Hold on. Oh my God. What the fuck? Is it actually? That's interesting. That's your first one. Because I've, I know.

so much about him. You've never seen an area. Okay, yeah, we've listed all of them. That's a crazy thing to realize at this moment. In his Vegas sphere show. What the hell? That's so funny. No, yeah, there's no way Jake's uh, postcards from Earth. Oh, postcards from Earth. Yeah, that's a good one. No, that's hilarious. Yeah, my first Aeronovsky. There you go. Holy shit. What the hell did we do? Didn't you suggest we see this in theaters? Yeah. Yeah. So what?

What about it? I love that. I'm aware of the culture. Yeah. Interesting. Okay, cool. All right. Well, I've, you know, I would love to talk about recum at some point. If somebody else doesn't recommend it soon, I think I might. He's good at making movies that I only want to watch once. Oh, no.

I want to watch Requiem like every day But I'm weird in the brain So how do we feel about mother How is mother in the memory? I loved it You might Very creative hate it because the symbolism's like Too obvious Okay like that's that's maybe my biggest issue with it is like

The interpretation is just like oh yeah this is this like very clearly the entire movie But I mean in terms like you know as a anxiety like nightmare logic movie it works out really well and I think more people would have liked it if Jennifer Lawrence wasn't in it

but less people would have seen it yeah hmm interesting yeah I agree is it true Aronovsky stole like everything from anime for black swan oh right there's conflicting information on it

So he, oh my God, what was the newest? Perfect Blue, right? No, yeah, because it's, yeah, Satoshi Khan, Perfect Blue. There's some shots in Requiem for a Dream. And then someone said he bought the rights, but now I'm going to have to fact check that because I think that was disputed. And maybe he did, but it was like after the fact or something. But like, I don't know.

It's like the both show. Okay, yeah. Like, when we're going down to like just shots that look the same, but the entire experience is different, I'm just going to call that homage. they're incredibly different films like if you do a trunk shot it's not like stealing from Tarantino or whatever right like if you do I feel I feel like there's

so many instances of films homaging other films like identical shot just being like yes my love for this movie is just I'm referencing this movie and working it into my own and I feel like that happens a lot but as soon as it happens with an American

director homageing an anime the the accusations of theft are just always like at the forefront

well you've shown how easy it can be to just be like hey look these shots are similar exactly must be stolen with Kimba

I mean that like open my eyes I'm like oh wow it's super easy to do that yeah yeah I don't think it was a coincidence

it seems very unlikely that it was like a coincidence from Aronovsky it's just a matter of like okay

are you stealing their intellectual property in a way where it's replacing the original's market? I don't know because they're entirely different. Like, perfect blue is not, it's literally not Requiem for, they're both different movies. And people always said that about Inception too, right? Where it's like, this is just a rip-up of paprika. Inception and paprika, yeah. But it was like, I hadn't seen paprika until somebody recently. I was like, oh, this is like very different movies.

There are some similar, like, concepts or ideas. or maybe one was like inspired by. For sure. Yeah. Like it's not replacing it. It's not. Yeah. It doesn't feel egregious.

It doesn't feel like, well, this is pointless because this other thing exists. They definitely exist in their own spaces. Yeah. And scratch different itches entirely. Yeah. I'm just going to. It really depends on how much. But yeah.

Aronovsky's so interesting because I feel like he doesn't have like true defenders or like, like, I know there are people who love him. But I feel like it always comes with. well I like these ones I like these movies you know because he is such like a weird career and such a variety of films

that you don't see him get in the kind of love that someone like Villeneuve gets or you know it's like he doesn't have that kind of loyalty it seems yeah even though he only really has one major miss in my opinion

like all of his other films are interesting okay it's so funny I rephrased my Google search got two different AI overviews that are like entirely contradictory, just depending on how I phrase, just a direct yes or a direct no, depending on how I phrase the question, just a complete contradictory. Anyway, without spending an hour fucking doing research into this, my best assessment

currently of what happened with Aronovsky in Perfect Blue, he was rumored to have purchased the rights to remake it. And so people were saying that that was a defense for him using what two shots three maybe I think there might be one in Black Swan also in his films just like specific I don't know like kind of visual almost motifs anyway turns out that attempt to acquire the rights never went through so he didn't own the rights. But I'm just basing this off of like random things that I'm not like actually digging into. I don't have the primary source for any of these things.

So who knows? At the end of the day. Viewers tell us. Yeah. What is the deal? At the end of the day. No, don't trust the fucking viewers. They're the same.

In the comments, I will blindly listen to whoever has the top top info. Viewers, give us a fucking primary source. and I'll believe the primary source. Don't believe viewers. Jesus Christ. Don't believe any of these people. Viewers do research for us for free. No, people don't know how to, people.

That's just, it's such a basic fucking thing. Such a basic thing to just go, I wonder where that quote came from. And then click on an article. And then the article says, oh, variety report it. And then you click on that. And then if variety was the one doing the interview and that's where the quote came from, you know the primary source. And you know that it's not some.

reinterpreting that primary source in a way that'll get more clicks or in a way that's dishonest, right? That's all you need to find the answer to anything. Just find the primary source. If there is no primary source, it might have been made the fuck up by somebody on YouTube or Reddit, right? It's really that simple. It's not complicated. It's not even hard. I'm guessing the majority of our audience is American, so I don't, I feel like this is falling on deaf years right now. It's just everybody on it like I'm so sick of like Grock is this true? Is it? Grock is it? I don't understand it's it's not a difficult thing. It's not that hard. It takes like a minute. We have the the like easiest tools to information we've ever had in

human history to find information and we're doing the opposite. We're fine we're like, oh, can you please confirm my bias actually? Man, I feel for you Fuck everything Sorry, this is a different subject Yeah Aronovsky Uh, dude

is publicly saying that he took inspiration from Satoshi Khan in his films So I don't know how to call that anything other than an homage Because he's literally saying Like, yes, he inspired

parts of my films So, anyway. But that's like every movie ever made is going to have a list of inspirations that they want to channel. Exactly. You know, there are levels to it if it's, you know, the rock sky rape, skyscraper. Whoa. That was horrible. Dude.

Fucking out. We need to have like a, like an actual brainstorming session on how to make that script a reality. Yeah, maybe not. fucking out yeah sky scraper being like die hard you know

it's not like that's like obvious it's on his face or like suicide squad 2016 just being a blatant guardian to the galaxy right

something like that um I completely lost my train of thought after fucking it's okay wait what did you say I'm so lost he said sky

and he forgot the uh SC after and decided to continue the yeah my miss speaking it's just been like crazy oh yeah oh I see oh my god so like a really interesting

title yeah interesting okay that's the word for it I want to pitch that to Warner brothers yeah leave that to you well the rock he's getting rave reviews right now from uh Venice oh my god it could be a porn parody replace the rock with the cock

I got skinny rock now too skinny rock everyone loves skinny rock and he has glasses now he's Is he skinny? It's not skinny. No, he's still huge. Just not as reided. Comparatively, he looks like a regular human kind of now.

No, I don't think he will ever again. I think he looks, he's like, he just trimmed down a little bit. Have you not seen the pictures? He looks like, oh, you don't look like you're going to pop, you know? He looks like Professor Hulk in the comics, you know, like after the Hulk like wears glasses, right? Right. that I think. You know, but I heard

Smashing Machine is really good. I'm looking forward to that. Yeah, let's talk about. I'll be seeing it in a week or less. Jealous, jealous. Can you, like, FaceTime me while you watch it? Oh, sure, yeah. I can just watch it with you.

No, yeah. Okay, cool. I'll bring in, like, a stream setup. Yeah. Like a big portable battery and, like, a selfie stick. Yeah. Bring a generator in case you need extra power. It's really nice.

Yeah. No, they know who I am, so it. it'll be fine. Okay, cool, cool. Yeah, the rock, word tight, so. Mm-hmm. Do we have anything else to say about the rock or Katziel?

Darren Aronovsky or cot stealing? Yeah, I mean, I give it a, I was thinking like either high six or a low seven, I think I'll be nice today. I think I'll give it a low seven out of ten. And you know what they say about low seven out of tens. That's a normally masterpiece. that they're closer to a six than an eight.

Oh, right. Yeah, right, right, okay. Yeah, it's just a solid seven for me, three and a half star. It kind of is mostly interesting to me with the other Aronowski films in mind, just as far as where it sits in his filmography. But there's just so much intent to the execution. I would happily watch this again. Cool.

I can't believe I'm being the negative one today. Wow. I'm giving this one a solid six out of the ten, six out of ten, neither closer to a five nor an eight, purely in the middle, perfect six. There we go. Well, it wouldn't be close to an eight. It would be close to a seven, right? Well, okay, yeah, that's fine. I'm not thinking straight. That's okay. Me neither going to think about Scott's paper ever again, the same way. We all had to watch this fucking three and a half hour long film. Yeah, I'm going to blame the critic without.

Yes, blame the critic. Thank you. I know who I'm blaming. All right. I recommended a movie last week and it wasn't a spite recommendation, but. Yeah, it was. but I suffered because

I didn't know there was going to be so much Star Wars in it yeah I was thinking about that it was like an unintentional spite to yourself oh dude yeah like this this it's perfect what is it called shot in Freud

so as soon as we got the wreck though as soon as people saw it people were saying we had to watch the trilogy and I'm like wait there's other ones did you guys watch other films because I only watched Thugnogne. I did. Okay.

Okay, of course. For no good reason. So, okay, it's so weird. So I was doing a stream with my friend LW. And lately we've been, you know, even though the premise is, you know, we might do a video game. Lately we've been like, I don't know, we'll watch some TV show or whatever on stream. And we were about to set up a video game. We were eating some food.

And I'm talking to him about, like, you know, why. why there's a desktop icon of to boldly flee on my computer and why that's funny. And then people in the chat were asking, what's the new Sardonicass recommendation? I said that. And then I started asking in chat, I'm like, okay, do I have to, like, there's one other one, right? Do I have to watch fucking Kickassia? And then LW out of nowhere gets this fucking, this light in his eyes. and he gets so excited

and he's like oh dude no I have to watch Kikassi I'm like what because he doesn't know who the nostalgia critic is he doesn't know what channel awesome is he doesn't know any of this shit and I'm like what are you talking about

like are you sure you're not confusing it with like a different movie I didn't even know he kept like a list of movies he like doesn't like somebody told him to watch this a fucking forever ago and it somehow stayed in his memory maybe just from the title

yeah and he doesn't know he doesn't know why he needed to see I'm like, are you sure? Because like, I couldn't even imagine him enjoying it. And he was like, no, yeah, we got to watch this. I'm like, okay. And then we wound up, we literally just spent the entire day watching the three nostalgia

critic movies, Kickassia and Suburban Knights and to Boldly Flea. And the entire runtime of all films was like seven hours. And so we just kind of like drank and chatted and complained. And, you know, like it was an interesting experience. But yeah, I wasn't planning on going through all three of them. But just for some reason, he'd like, it came to him in a vision. Cooled out to you. Yeah.

Like, that was just so weird. That's great. There's like zero other people on the planet that that would have happened. Like, there's nobody else would have been like, oh, yeah, I want to watch Kickasio with you. And who made that? Who was the director of that film? I have no idea. Dougie.

I wish he would teach me how to Dougie. God damn it. I'm curious both of you. What is your relationship to experience with the. creator known as Doug Walker, nostalgia critic, channel awesome. I mean, it's such a vast world of information that I'm only very recently dived into. It's kind of like a new world of knowledge. So I'm just curious what, how does his legacy weigh upon this YouTube space?

As an old YouTuber who was doing stuff on the platform for a long time, when blip TV existed, which is where Channel Awesome would host most of their videos. This basically, yeah, he would be cross-posting on YouTube, and basically the algorithm of YouTube would then traffic people over to his website, Channel Awesome website, where it would be him, and then like six other characters that were also him, but in a slightly different costume and then like a dozen other internet reviewers plus maybe more like probably like 30 over time a dozen like 30 other critics that were all just clones of him um in some fashion or another yeah all the angry video game nerd yeah yeah and they were kind of like i don't know

maybe we could think of it is like they were different parts of his own psyche. We could turn this into like some Jungian psychology, right? We're like the, you know, everybody's, what does he say that everybody has like a male side and a female side? Like he has a nostalgia chick, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Real quick, that was the wildest thing to me. I had no idea that that Lindsay Ellis was. Oh yeah? Mm-hmm. Oh, this is, that's an awesome reveal, actually. I was like, whoa. And also, uh, Todd in the shadows. I mean, I didn't know any of these people had any history with this stuff.

Yeah. That's what kind of hidden. Yeah. Like, if you were a reviewer doing YouTube stuff back in the day, like a lot of people were trying to get on his site just because it was like the reviewing community. You know, people would apply to be like, I want to be one of the channel awesoms.

And then like, I have no idea how the structure and payment, you know, or overall contracts or, NDAs are like, I don't know what was involved in that. All of that, uh, there was like a big, what was it? What did they call them being canceled? Like cancel the channel or so? I don't remember. Change the channel.

Yeah. People were calling them out and there was like a bunch of documents about like mistreating workers and bad, uh, filming practices and not paying money and safety concerns and then like maybe sexual stuff like. I learned. I dove into that a little bit. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm not a person that goes into those things and deep dives on them, really? When there's too many words, I go, bye-bye, I'm sleeping. So I'm not going to state anything in those as fact because I don't know even what the content of all of those things are. It just seems, yeah, generally there was some issue with how things were being managed and structured, which when I heard about it kind of did not surprise me at all because at the end of the day this is a company

but it's literally just like some random people found success on the internet and decided to make a company but no like real experience in managing a company and so these things happen you know you see it sometimes

in the furry community of like you know someone just gets popular making fur suits or whatever and they're like oh you have no idea how to fucking manage a business because you kind of just got lucky and fell into this sort of thing, right? From what I saw, because I didn't have a lot of time this week to, like, get into it, but I did, like, you know, I watched some videos about it and everything, but from like what I saw, it was, like you said, Adam, like a really bad, like management system, but I think the most

egregious accusations were about allowing sexual harassment to go on without, like, you you know, intervening, uh, that sort of thing. There was like no HR department, probably. Right, or if there was, it was like very, well, there was. They didn't listen to her. Oh, really? Yeah, I didn't even know.

Damn, that's sakes. Instead of watching Keikasia, right, I watched this June the King, like two hour long channel awesome law video. Oh, wow. So it's sort of like kind of fresh in my mind now. Hell yeah. Um, because I was, I was kind of there from the beginning. I didn't even, I'd forgotten or didn't even know that Doug Walker when he was

early YouTube made those five second film videos, which I remember watching when they were being released and enjoying those. Interesting. But that started this whole war with him and copyright stuff. It's been a big thing with him for a long time, and it's a big part of To Boldly Flea, even, the Stop Online Privacy Act and all of this stuff. He kept making these five second film channels, and YouTube would just take them down. and that's partially why he made his own website

was from the copyright issues he was having on YouTube. So, yeah, he created his own network, his own private website in order to kind of skirt around that because the landscape is so different today like everyone's using movie clips everywhere. Some studios are worse than others,

but it was kind of a new thing back then. It was testing new waters. He was passionate about that kind of stuff. I was just going to mention my first review that I posted on YouTube got copyright claimed by Lionsgate and at that point in time in what 2010 there literally was no like dispute appeals process that I could use it was literally just like oh your video got taken down and then I had to like find the email of someone at Lionsgate and that's how I got the video backup is by like contacting people independently completely off platform with no help for from YouTube in terms of how to contact them. Right? Well, yeah, ironically enough.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Adam, but you remember the Where's the Fair Use thing in my 2016? Was that the first time we were ever in a call together? Oh, you and I? I think it might be in an audio call together? Probably, yeah, maybe, yeah. Do you remember that? It was Doug Walker, his brother and us two. And it was to do with the 2016 Where's the Fair Use campaign.

Wow. That was making me laugh too because that comes up in that June the King video like we've mentioned in it. Nice. We're famous. We had to be like loosely connected.

You guys are part of the lore. Yeah. And Matt, you said law is the word because like once this began this film, I was like, what the fuck is going on? I don't,

because I didn't watch like the nostalgia critic really. And not even knowing the critic, not knowing like the 30 plus side characters. It's like what? And every other line is an in joke as well. So it's like, what? What are you talking about? Like, I have no clue what is going on.

And you mentioned that drama, but there are so many. It's like you need a two-hour-long video to explain it. Like, there's so much drama with the channel awesome stuff. It's just never ending. And it's somehow kind of, I guess, been forgotten. Because I guess he was on Smiling Friends. So that evens it out. Yeah, he seems to be having like a rehabilitation, like reputationally.

Like, I know there have been, I watched like Folding Ideas did a video. about the wall video that you have. Oh, yeah, I love that video. Parody. There's been like lots of stuff dissecting his work,

blah, blah, blah, but also there's also been from what I've seen like resurgent of, or at least like a nostalgic appreciation for like what he did and what his, you know, what he kind of pioneered, I guess on the internet. He is the nostalgia.

Even you talking about a castration movie. Like didn't the director say, yeah, he was an inspiration? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. She said... That's why we're talking about this, right?

That's literally why. So shout out to Louise Ward. Castration movie Anthology 1 is very... It's only a few dollars on Gumroad right now. You should buy it. It's great. It's four and a half hours long. It's awesome.

4chan culture. Transness. There you go. Nice. Yeah. So that's why we're watching it. It's because she said that part two is inspired by to boldly flee. And so I'm like, well, you know, I got a...

I'm so curious. Yes, now is the time. And let's be honest, it was going to get recommended on the podcast at some point. Oh, yeah. One of us was going to do it. Someone else was going to vote it for episode 200. We were going to have to talk about it at some point. Everybody's been wanting us to for some reason.

I think because it's less about the film and more about the conversation of like Doug Walker and the channel awesome stuff, which people can't get enough of. Like, when the Wall Review came out, anybody. that made a video on it, like guaranteed million views. Like, people were like, hell yeah, let's shit on Doug or whatever. I don't know. I think he's in such a weird position where to me, I just kind of see him as like the Garfield of YouTube, where you can look at, you can look at him and be like, oh, wow, I guess people found this funny at one point.

not a lot of people seem to now, but maybe some do, but you just don't know anybody who does. And it's still going. And the jokes aren't great, but it's existed for long enough and in our culture enough on YouTube, that it's ripe for like parody and criticism and like ironic sort of humor. You know, people, people will make memes like no nostalgia critic November or whatever, right? Like there are many weird sort of He was on only plays as a guest the other day. Yeah, yeah, he was on only plays, yeah.

Yeah, like the dude's not disappearing because he's a very important figure in the early internet, you know, YouTube film reviewer's sphere, right? Like he, you know, as much as anybody can criticize him, he was very much like pioneered a space that all of us enjoy. to this day. Yeah, it's crucial to that. Even his very first video, his first video he ever made was a viral video of him quitting his job at the time, which I remember watching when it came out. That was his first, why would it be this first video? Why would he quit his job? How could that be his first video? I thought he quit his job because his videos were doing well. No, no, no, he orchestrated this whole, I'm sure you've seen it. I have. I just remembered it, right? Yeah, yeah.

I've never heard of this. That's crazy. But you made like an event out of it. him quitting his job it became like a viral thing and he made a scene yeah yeah he made a scene she's good at doing um yeah and then did the five second videos and the channel awesome thing and then that morphed well is that guy with the glasses first yeah yeah he's always the figurehead he was always like the top of it the top of the pyramid yeah it was kind of like a pyramid the critic and that was kind of like the that the whole point of to boldly flee was designed retire the nostalgic critic character that was like the plan that was like the whole point of it in a way yeah that was for demo real which apparently was scary to everyone else on the website because

it was like you're like retiring the biggest thing on the site what does this mean for all of us like and i don't i don't know if he really it was more of an ego project it that's the vibe it has yeah um where it wasn't really about the collaborative thing at a certain point because shortly after well it was a few years passed and when the drama you're talking about started coming out for the first time all these different people that were ex-channel awesome were coming out with all these stories about these films and the way they're put together and how none of them were paid for anything to do with it they shot it in about a week apparently with days going from like 6 a.m. to like 2 a.m. on some of these days and like yeah the stuff with lindsay Alice that weird

scene. Oh my god. She brought up, um, and it's just endless drama about it. This, the spoonie is like a character. He has his own like separate hour long documentary of like what happened with him. I didn't really know this dude either, but it's endless, like the amount of characters and people to pick at. And it's like a tapestry of just like bullshit.

It's like fascinating to me, the meta stuff, but that, This is unwatchable. It's actually unbearable. This film, I've tried before. I've tried maybe about three or four times. And the first I'd ever got was about 20 minutes. And I know that because the time code when I went to the upload was still on where I'd last on YouTube. Scored it back to the beginning.

I was like, oh, yeah, I remember this. Yeah. Just I, why is it three and a half hours long? Why? Why did he do that to them? Why did he do that? If you had one week to shoot, why would you do that? Your friends?

I think even though it's a film, they were releasing them, like, episodically on the website. They were? Yeah. But all, like, the visual effects were free. Like, they didn't pay for anything. Yeah, I think Phelis did the visual effects. The guy in it. One of the...

Right, yeah. There were a bunch, right? One of the critics. Yeah. I didn't recognize anybody. Yeah, there's a lot of characters in here. And people have, it's so interesting because, like, I was, I was around at this point in time where they were all, you know, at their prime or whatever. But I never was interested enough to be watching it.

Like, I knew, I knew of it. I think I liked one five-second movies thing. But then, like, I don't know, checking out any of nostalgic critics' reviews, like, I just found most of it. to be summarizing a clip that you just saw. So like almost like sniper wolf tier like and then this happens and then this happens sort of and then you know you make a joke every once in a while then you cut away to a skit the skit might as well be unrelated it's like okay well I guess you just like making skits

the skits aren't funny to me you know just some high-pitched screaming or comic book soy references and oh batman mario shit you like Okay, just wasn't for me. It was never for me. And so I never really I never really got the lore. All I know is that yes, people don't like, what's this guy's name of the fucking? I gotta click on his IMDV. Linkara or whatever people don't like him. I don't know. There's something about his presence in these films where I'm like, hey, you know, he's like an awkward guy, but he's seems nice you know and then people people this is like a running thing since like over a decade ago

but like the the community of people that really don't like me are like I hope he turns into Spoonie and so that's my only knowledge of Spoonie is that he like stopped making content because of like depression or whatever and so like yeah literally for like over a decade people are like, why mess is going to be the next spoonie? Like they want it to happen for some reason. Still hasn't happened. Yeah, he had on like a Twitter rampage. There's still time, I guess.

Like, um, he made some inappropriate comments about other spoony. Oh, what do you say? I think that was kind of the beginning of the end. He made a, uh, inappropriate joke about someone else on the channel, awesome crew or something. Um, yeah. And just started splintering and doubled, doubling down and wound up leaving and somehow figured out how to get a successful Patreon but then kind of stopped doing anything

and promised to make a movie kind of like to boldly flee was like one of the stretch goals of his Patreon and it you like panicked and made a video saying I don't I don't really know what I'm going to do with this movie I get was this false avatar and it just like spiral from there um yeah yeah again that's another hour of law I've never heard of that person in my I had no idea who that is Yeah, I hadn't either until I watched this video. Well, yeah, they're one of the guys. This is kind of like Synecdochia, New York, because every single one of these characters has their own,

they're the main characters in their own stories, and we only get a small window into their lives, never really understanding them completely. You know what this is like? This is like jumping into Avengers Endgame without seeing a single previous Marvel movie, you know? That's exactly what I felt like. Well, I saw the other two,

And it was just as confusing for me. Also, just like Synecichy, New York, it is super meta. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, he actually does have a Synecichy, New York. I think you tweeted about that. He becomes like Charlie Kaufman at the end. Like, what does happen? And also, it made me genuinely depressed, like Synexie New York does.

Like, it genuinely bummed me out. Like I think I was like mildly depressed for a couple days because like trying to get through this. And it's not because it's like it really wasn't that hard to get through. I'll be honest, I had to do 1.5 speed for certain parts of this movie because I. Oh no, perfect. Yeah. It genuinely like I could not get through. And you know what?

It actually got a lot better at 1.5 speed. I feel like the rhythm, the pacing. Sometimes it's what you need. It was like loony tunes a little bit more like, okay, I can get like the antic feel of like you're just doing trying to. trying all these jokes. It really worked a lot better at one and a half speed. Hell yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And like, glacially paced. But, you know, I think the reason why it put me into kind of a tailspin was not just, it wasn't just the movie. It was learning all this lore and kind of learning about the process of what happened.

And also like how unfortunate it turned out for so many of these creators and how bad it was working on this set and making this film. Because in some ways, it is kind of remarkable that they turned out something of this quality at three and a half hours long after shooting for seven days. Like, that's, that just is insane. What do you mean of this quality? Like, it seems about what it would be. I mean that it's even coherent at all. Like, the fact that...

Is it? It's not coherent. What do you mean coherent? There's like, there's like musical sequences and special, like, there are scenes that it's like, you, they put thought and deliberation into this. regardless like half-assed. More so than the first two films. This was the right way to watch it for me. I appreciated to boldly-fly much more than I would have if I didn't see the first two.

Okay. That's interesting. Well, you know, I think that's part of what bumped me out so much was that like you feel this energy of like them wanting to do something good, like Doug Walker wanting to make something genuinely good and trying really hard and this kind of like dividing. point in like the early internet optimism of like we can make anything we can do what we want we are the future and also just the crushing reality of that not happening that these people don't know what they're doing they aren't professional they don't have a professional back team they don't know how to

run a business they don't no you know yada yada yada yada yada yada and all these people just trying to survive and and it's just like so crushingly sad too because you know i can't i feel like anyone Look, we're all making stuff on the internet. We're all critiquing. We're all reviewing stuff. Like, this is, you know, you see part of yourself in this. And that's, it's the cringe feeling. You know, it's that cringe of like, oh, man, like, yeah, I make dumb jokes.

You know, this could happen to us any day. And it will happen to us of becoming cringe. Oh, do you want to make a crossover film? Yeah. Well, we, oh, man, if we made a crossover film. You're acting like cringe is in the future. Like, we're not cringe now and then eventually we'll become cringe later. That, you know, not never say never, but like, the Channel Awesome crew is like they, they've gotten less cringe as they go along, but they're still cringe.

Like, this is their improvement. Well, there's, there's being cringe and then there's this, man. Like, this is, this is someone else. But that's the thing. There's so much effort on display. That's why it hurts so bad because we are all cringe, you know, we all, to even, post anything on the internet. Embrace the cringe.

To try to make a joke. You have to be cringe. To put yourself out there. I'm not cringe. Oh, come on. You have to put yourself out there. And that's what hurts. And I remember, like, also, too, I was very much of this mindset, probably very much

like Doug Walker when I was like in middle school and high school. Like I was constantly making shit. I wanted to make. I made ambitious, long movies with my friends forcing them to, you know, you know, shoot with me and I'd make them hot dogs and I mean it's I I did this I was this you know in high school oh yeah in high school yeah right exactly yes exactly same in high school junior high high school a lot of people but discard that once they grow up they go okay this is ridiculous I'm not going to try to make a three and a half hour movie off of a bunch of lore from

a bunch of channels you know like it's it's stupid but the fact that just seeing someone do it it is kind of like it's endearing. Like there's part of me that watching this like this is kind of endearing seeing people do it. If they were a little younger, it might be more endearing, you know, but it's like a weird mixture of feelings and it brought all these emotions back from my youth. And I think a lot of people who watch this and cringe in horror, I think that's kind of like you're experiencing a genuine emotion. watch like that's a genuine like useful reaction to a work of art like true actually it's a struggle

but i i had a profound experience that genuinely like upset me for a couple days more or less than funny games oh damn more than funny games this this hit me harder than funny games this is more depressing this was more depressing than both of those films i'm gonna say it like because like there's still Like, man, I don't even know how to talk about some of this stuff. Like, the guy with the warrior hat, like, do you even know what happened to him? I heard, yeah. There's so much sadness attached to this movie. And, like, drama and misery.

Well, I hear what you're saying, and I feel that when I, like, watch an old angry Joe reveal or something like that. The earnestness, like, shines through. But with this, there is, like, a charming, like, oh, it's not that serious thing. like buried within here if it wasn't three and a half hours long exactly yeah exactly jake did you hear about what happened to war you no well he um he allegedly he got accused of skyscraping someone oh jesus okay but he also ended his own life too yeah oh oh i think i yeah there's so much lore like i literally had to stop because i was kind of spiraling i was like i don't want to really learn anymore about this like it is genuinely

I feel like I'm spiraling. Like I had an experience when I was younger. I did watch Doug Walker a couple times. Like I remember vividly like in elementary school or early high school watching one of his reviews and being like I don't feel good. I'm not going to watch any more of this man's videos. Like I genuinely had like a conscious like visceral reaction to watching him do like some review of like the cat in the hat and being like, no, I'm not. I can't do this. I'm not going to watch any more of it.

Yeah. I don't know. It's wild. Yeah, he's, um, I watch this knowing that there are films with like lower budgets and like worse cameras that are like way better, you know? And just like, that's part of it to me. It's, where it's like, he was the same age as me when he made this film, me right now. He was 30.

Oh, wow. Oh, damn. So it's just like. 52 I don't get he had resources he did like he'd been around for a long time at that point there had been a bunch of like money making and investments and it's just like you can't just like adjust the white balance for this shot man you know it's like no you you you review movies and you make fun of like the room oh yeah it's the same so you've made something like worse in the room.

And if you wanted to make something for your community and connect all these channels and do something fun, like, of high quality, you could have done a 20-minute video covering the same material with just a good amount of jokes, and it would have been like a fun little thing for your fans now. Or even like Scott the Was, for his like 200th special. He made like quite a long, like, 90-minute love letter to his fans type thing, but it's like, well made and kind of fun and like just it just fits it makes sense yeah self-awareness you have to self-awareness yeah yeah that's what it is that it was literally just i was literally just about to

say that same thing right like no one's gonna shit on dug too hard for like not properly lighting or framing a scene where it's just like a cutaway gag and a youtube review or whatever like you know if i think is something funny or whatever that i want to throw into one of my reviews and it's just like a cutaway thing, I'm probably, probably just going to, you know, film it with my phone or like, I'm not going to, I'm not going to, like, go to school and do research on like everything I should know about the camera equipment that I have if I do use my GH5. I'm just, you know, I'm not going to color correct it. These are very basic things because I just, you know, I'll save that for better projects. For projects where the implication or what you're, uh, what you're communicating through the project is that it's a big important thing, which this film very much is, especially with it being the announcement, essentially, like the sending off of the nostalgia critic character being like,

I'm retiring this character to start Demo Reel, right? I don't know if either of you have watched Demo Real. What I quoted at the beginning was from it. the we're not doing the supervillain shuffle thing. Is that the game show? No, that's pop quiz hot shot. Oh, I watched Ralph's video about that.

I thought that was very funny. Yeah, demo reel was shortly after to boldly flee and this was during a period of time where he said, I'm doing this now and nostalgia critic no more because this is what I want to do. I want to make films, right? And it's like a sketch comedy thing

Every episode was like what an hour or something shit? I don't know And he does six episodes And like nobody watched them So I'm like like here we are demo real Oh my God yeah part one so this was Part one of the first episode posted 11 years ago Hasn't even broken 100,000 views So like 89000 views on this thing

posted in 2014 because it's unwatchable and that's first episode the drop-off I'm going into part two of first episode 34,000 views right like nobody was watching this shit

was this on the channel or some channel yeah I'm watching yeah these are official uploads that I'm seeing right now there's a playlist for them and skip skip a couple episodes ahead 15,000 views right nobody was fucking what like

of course they would have to abandon demo reel and go back to doing nostalgic critic shit because like that would be that that was just absolutely unsustainable my issue with this is that in terms of like filmmaking like correct me if I'm wrong Alex I don't know if this they said this in like the lore video but he bought like like he rented like an actual like studio space like a warehouse he like made a studio for yeah for demo reel and it costs like what like $200,000 or some shit It was something like 10, 15 grand a month they had to pay. Yeah, yeah. And so like, you know, on paper, it's like, oh, yes, we're doing a professional production because we have this space. We have an actual studio to make our art. But then, you know, they're filming it with like what looks, what appears to be just like a handy cam still. Yeah.

Right? It appears to be that it sounds like the audio is coming from the camera still. Right? it there may or may not be like actual lighting on the set but we can't tell because nothing looks good everything's just ironic hey isn't it funny that I'm standing in front of a green screen sort of thing and then the jokes aren't funny like the only it kind of exposes the fact that like the only reason people were laughing at the jokes in the first place is because they were related to the movie within the review. Because as soon as you take that out and they're parodying real things, right?

They're parodying other films still. As soon as that's not in the context of the review and it's not a cutaway gag and it's the meat of what they're creating, it's just absolutely unwatchable and nobody's watching it and nobody likes it. So it's just like, yeah, they had to completely abandon that and change course and be like, well, I'm just kidding. I am doing nostalgia critic again. And I hope he enjoys it. You know, like I hope he enjoys doing nostalgia critic because, you know, that's where his success is. Not saying you should never try anything again. Just like, I don't know. I think the landscape for YouTube creators has changed a bit since

2012, 2013. Because now, more than ever, like, Hollywood is looking at YouTube in terms of like where they want to get talent from. And you, you know, when you're doing your own independent like YouTube-esque productions, you have to, you have to micromanage everything and you have to be responsible for everything. And, you know, you have to find all the right people you want to work with. But in an actual Hollywood production, like real producers and real money and the system basically already being set up for you to step into it, like these people will find you professionals that know what they're doing. They'll find you somebody that knows how to light a scene. They'll find you somebody that knows how to operate a boom mic properly, right? And people that know how to like edit and mix properly. These things are. set up for you if you're entering the Hollywood system. That's basically what David F. Sandberg was saying when he was on our podcast, the director of Lights Out. Now don't get me wrong, his short

that he posted to YouTube lights out is way more competent than in filmmaking than anything than nostalgia critics ever created. But still, you know, he described his experience kind of going into the Hollywood system and just being like, oh yeah, like they just, they have these things set up for you and you don't have to micromanage everything. You don't have to, you know, be on top of everything. It's just, it's there for you and it's a well-oiled machine at this point. So in that sense, I think maybe there is a place for Doug in a more professional production somewhere, but I guess it just depends on what he's doing, right? Like maybe as an actor. The thing is, what you're describing with, you know, Doug Ward with Demo Reel from just from what I've heard about is that it's, it correlates with a kind of insecurity that you detect all throughout to Boldly Fleet, which is like in the text of like just the script, what the whole movie's about is like this fear of Hollywood and selling out.

There's this concept of selling out to big Hollywood and like making shitty big movies when you could just be independent and make good stuff on the internet. And there's this kind of insecurity that I feel watching it of like Doug Walker being like, I love these movies. Everything I do, everything I reference is Star Wars and these big franchises and I love it. But I still, no matter how big I get online, I'm still not taken seriously and I'm not going to be able to make this type of stuff. You know, I don't have the resources. I'm not, you know, I'm not talented enough, you know, to do that. So it's like there's this insecurity and frustration, I think, that.

It's like I love these movies. I love Hollywood, but I also resent it so much. And it comes across and it puts a kind of bitterness in the whole experience. Yeah. But that's what's so strange about it, though, because they're like clowning on Alvin the Chipmunks and stuff like that. Oh, yeah. But they're putting together a movie like worse than disaster movie. Yes.

Like it's actually worse, which is like, how have you done? Like the plot of the movie, right, is Star Wars, Star Trek, Ghostbusters, Cowboy Bebore, Superman, Josh Jack, Super Mario, Star Fox, Battlefield Earth, Robocop, Matrix, aliens, Metal Gear. You release a podcast of you literally just doing that forever. But that is the plot of the movie. That's the plot, three and a half hours at that. That was a very interesting experience. That was simultaneously calming and anxiety.

inducing. Do a whole side channel. I was like, I don't know how I resisted not putting it on 1.5 like you, Jake, because when it goes to that Judge Dredd scene where he's like in a field for literally like 15 minutes and it's like, why are you doing this to me? Yep. Why? You didn't have to do this.

Like if there was, I could get over the way the film looks, right? If there was some like heart to it and there's something honest behind it. Castration movie. Something clever, like a joke or something. Yeah, something like that But it doesn't have that It like It just throws a string of references at you

And then tries to get clever at the end With the meta like I'm meeting the writer And we've gone into the plot hole And yeah We're gonna sacrifice ourselves to save And it's like oh my God dude What was he thinking? You know

It's so weird Because as I mentioned earlier Like It does feel like over the course of what was it like three years it was like one per year or something since the first Kikasia or whatever it did feel watching them in succession like oh he's slowly learning like you know how to better frame a scene very very minor basic things and it still looks like shit but it's like oh you're you

know like there here's a P-O-V shot in there right whereas like the kickassia the first thing was the entire movie is just nothing, right? I wrote down one note for Kickassia. My note was, Doug thinks he's bugs bunny. Is that the one where he's dressed as Link from Seldar? No, that's Suburban Knights.

Oh. Suburban Knights is where they literally, like, the entire thing was just referencing other popular things. And that would just literally a substitute for, comedic right somehow even more than this yeah did it have the level of self-referential channel awesome stuff because that's like what compounds this movie even further is it's not just the movie references it's also a bunch of references to other channel awesome stuff i think so like what was that red shirt thing please explain it what was it i'm a red shirt when one

dies another always comes back there was like a whole character well isn't that a star i was gonna say star trick yeah that's star trek okay Was that really? That is Star Trek. Oh my God. Yeah. It's like a Star Trek thing. Like the red shirt always dies.

I thought at 1.5 speed, I was genuinely finding that amusing when that guy just kept getting hit by like pick art of like a safe falling on him. It was just like they're trying to do like yeah, like a Bugs Bunny like Looney Tunes thing. And to be honest, Adam, you kind of ruined space balls for me when you mentioned how. like Doug Walker is basically he's just they're just trying to do like Mel Brooks like there's such love for those there's that exact same joke even like just straight out of space balls

with the uh going into the other room like fine I'll come to engineering and it's the same like sight gogoy and it was done so poorly yeah it was so bad it was like the timing was all off Doug Walker is worst case scenario Mel Brooks Wow Yeah he's

It is I think it was in the One of the previous two movies It might have been into boldly I don't remember But there are parts like as you mentioned Uh Where they're kind of like Shitting on Alvin and the Chipmunks

And every time they do one of these These moments where like that's within the script First of all It doesn't add anything to the script. script that's just kind of like I don't know if they thought that was like Tarantino dialogue but you know keeping it short because we're we're mentioning a thing that we're gonna say oh yeah that movie is bad I guess because they're critics or whatever but they don't they don't say anything about why it's bad

they don't go into the substance of why those are bad they just go ha ha bad thing that people hated at the time and they're essentially just jumping on a bandwagon which was what a lot of their content was and so in one of these other films they have a line where it's like oh yeah Michael Bay sucks or whatever they set at least the thing is better than Michael Bay but they're not saying anything about it they're not and again that's like to me sure there's people that might disagree because in one out of every 50 videos on one of their channels like they you know make some really substantive commentary or something but my experience just as a person that's clicked enough to know I don't want to watch

it uh it's just been it's been really like shallow observation and it comes through in their writing for their films, right? Like, everything's just really obvious. You don't go into anything interesting. And you're worse than the things that you're saying are bad. And so it's just kind of annoying. Like, Michael Bay is way more talented than any of these people. They have the audacity.

They have the audacity to rag on, like, Juno for like a whole scene. Oh, yeah, Juno, thank you. Yeah. Because that was popular to hate at the time. That's literally the only reason it's being mentioned. Like, you start to wonder if these people actually have that opinion or if they're just, you know, they know that the internet hates this thing and then they, you know, are they just feeding into kind of like the reactionary ecosystem just in a lesser way at the time? Is it not poetic that they all of Channel Awesome basically kind of fell to that same type of, well, everyone hates it now. So we're going to hate it.

You know, I feel like I'm aware more of Channel Awesome as a result of like the backlash than anything else. You know, kind of the way that they approach criticizing media is now the way others are criticizing them. Yeah, it is kind of fascinating. I will give it one thing, though. The get away from her, you bitch line was better than the one in Alien Romulus. Oh, God. That's true. That's funny.

Yeah. Get away from her, you bitch Yeah So I don't know I don't know what It's an interesting Weird thing And I want to remind people that like

I don't know any of these people personally Well I did meet Malcolm He was nice But yeah other than that I don't know any of these people personally I'm not saying that they're like bad people but I do have strong feelings about art

and the art I believe that YouTube videos are art I believe that making a film even if you posted on YouTube it's art and you know when when you create things like this like it really the conversation about art is also the conversation about the person and their relationship with art

and you know what what must you think of art for you to create something like this right like it matches. The type of content they create is exactly what it would be for someone who makes this film and vice versa. This is exactly the film that this squad would make based on their content. That's how I see it, you know?

It's a very... Yeah, but like any movie where the director gets all the credit or all the blame, it was directed by Doug, written by Doug and his brother. So like, that's what it is. me, well, not anything, it's this weird, self-indulgent fan service for this, I don't know if, there's like a tinge of ego to it for me, where it's like, it's utterly self-serving. Oh, hugely, yeah. I mean, you don't say.

Yeah. It's, it's made to amuse himself. Like, that, that's the target audience is like, they, they just loved the thing that they made. And then, I don't know. Was it for anybody? else, I don't know, maybe technically, I guess. I was going to mention earlier when I was talking about like the discrepancies between, you know, how how the filming style kind of improved over time?

I was kind of annoyed by, uh, there's like a, when he meets himself as like the writer and the critic having a Charlie Kaufman moment. There's, there's one shot where it's like face on just like same level to dug in the laptop like the cameras at the same level but then the critic it's a very low angle filmed shot so the critic is shown way up high as I was explaining this on stream I had a few drinks so I accidentally said high angle instead a low angle I meant to say low angle But part of my issue is like in the context of the scene, the person talking authoritatively and kind of explaining the things going on is Doug the writer with the laptop.

And the person, you know, receiving that information and being confused about it, having less power dynamically in the scene is Doug the critic who has shown up higher. So I just like, I don't know. in the language of filmmaking, as soon as you're making a choice about like, what height are we showing the characters? Things like that, right? I'm a big fan of motivated choices, and I feel like it's the opposite.

I know they didn't put that thought into it. I know it's just fucking random. I know that they probably filmed at a low angle because the room was small and they didn't get a wide angle lens. That's probably why it happened. I'm just saying... That's probably because the tripod wasn't tall enough.

Yeah, yeah, honestly. Yeah. It's probably it's probably they were using a not tall tripod that day I mean I would know I have a tripod that's broken right now and I film everything from down low Just I'm just like I don't want to fix my fucking tripod Yeah you make video tweets though you don't make movies No no yeah that's not I mean I could I could I just make a three and a half hour like version of one of my sketches and it would be yeah you know I mean it would probably be something dude

I would watch it. It'd be unbearable. It would be... No, exactly. I mean, that's what's so insane to me is because I could see in a universe where I'm like, yeah, like, wow, I'm definitely at a point where people would give a shit about a three and a half hour, you know, long form sketch, which is basically what to boldly flee is. Like, even the credits, it just, it insists upon itself. Like, the credits are so long. If you gave you to the film, it's like, who is this?

Hsuja Jima style, just referencing himself, his name is like, cries it again and again. Uh-huh. I mean, when you've built, there's some, there's some directors out there that do very similar, like, self-indulgent, masturbatory things. Sure. You know, like Lars von Trier. But I think that, you know, it's almost kind of like the fun quirkiness of the character at that point, because at the end of the day, they've got a, they've got a, they've got a lot.

lot in their gallery, right, to prove that they know what they're doing to the point where you wonder if like they're a troll, right, in some of their more recent shit. It's like, oh, you're showing yourself as Hitler, like, okay, buddy. And then it's just kind of funny and then you move on, right? But I feel like they, they've at least earned enough of an audience to be self-referential in that way. I don't know. There's a respect for the craft.

Yeah. Yeah. You've got to earn that ego. Yeah. Yeah. Well, like with a Kajima, it's like, well, you didn't make metal gear, you know? Like, it's not like this. Dude, I was so, like, bored through parts of this movie.

I wrote down this note because I was getting just mad at the most random, like, nothing shit. There's a seam of like an American plug socket and I started getting mad, right? Because of the American plug. If I'm nationalistic about anything, it's my, it's, it's, like, it's, it's, it's, it's, the UK has the best plug sockets. I'm going there. Sure. You guys plug sockets, they suck, especially the American ones.

Lower, lower energy. Yeah. Sure. Yeah, no, I'm not even going to fight that. I don't care. Yeah, now I'm with you there. Two lines, dumb. That's a lot strong, man.

Secure. Couldn't even do the same scene. Jake, you're not even a real American. You're not arguing about this for no reason. Yeah, well, the hell, man. No, I got to go. I mean, because like, there's like lower voltage, right, in the U.S.? Like I turn my kettle on, like my water heater, and it takes like 10 minutes to warm up water.

It's terrible. So they're not like just, can you not just pull them out by accident easily if you like trip over a wire? Like just pulls out. Oh, do they lock in in the UK? No, they're like a secure connection, man. That stuff ain't going anyway. Secure. You feel secure.

It would be interesting if that was all consolidated at one point. but that would require a one-world government or just cooperation. Because Canadian ones, they look like a kind of shocked face, right? Yeah, it's the same as the American ones, but it depends on whether or not it's grounded is where you get the mouth to the face. Right, yeah. So the two prong or three prong, depending on whether or not it's grounded. Right, yeah.

So I give American plug sockets a one out of ten. Canadian ones can get a five, and UK ones can get a, The American and Canadian ones are the same, I think. Like, they're literally the same, yeah. Oh, are they? Okay, the Canadian ones that are the same as the American ones without the shocked face. They also get a one. No, no, no, no.

We both use both dependent on what type of connection it is. So the third, the third plug. So the Americans have the sad face too. Yeah, we both have the exact same outlets, but some outlets don't have the third prong because they're not grounded. Right, right. Okay. I think. That's how it works. How do we start talking about this?

Well, since we are, just a shout out to knowing how powerful your device is when you plug it into your wall. I'm going to use this opportunity to do a little fucking PSA. If you have an air conditioner or a space heater especially, any device heater, especially, any device that consumes a lot of power, you want to plug that directly into your wall, not into a power bar. Because many of the power bars, especially the cheap ones you get on Amazon, they don't actually, they're not graded to have that much power going through it. And you can start a house fire. So always look up, make sure that if you do use any kind of extension or whatever, you get like a heavy duty, like graded for, you know, power tools and outdoor shit.

But yeah, look it up. It's very, whenever there's an opportunity to give life-saving advice that people might not have thought of, I will give it. I want our audience members to be the least likely to die out of every audience. How fitting is it that we'd rather talk about power sockets than this film?

We're literally talking about electrical sockets. It's all related. It's all, it's all coming together. Shout out to Lindsay L. for being easily the most talented out of everybody there and still doing great. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh.

But sure. I mean, I had no idea. I mean, that was wild. I was like, holy shit. Todd in the Shadows, also, I really like taught in the shadows, too. I didn't, I was like, that's crazy. Yeah. But yeah, both very good.

I just, I don't know about anyone else in the film. Those are the only two. Angry Joe. You don't know Angry Joe show? No, no. He's the best, but he's my best. my favorite part. Angry Joe carries this one back. He's the best actor

in this series. I wish he was the main character, you know? Sure. Who was the one with like the British accent who was Darth Vader at the end of the film? I couldn't name them, but

the one who has like a goatee, I think. He didn't name them. He was he was Darth Vader. Okay. I thought he was he gave a good performance. I didn't mind him. I thought Darth Vader was the guy who always says douche. He calls everyone a douche constantly. Yeah. And he wore the glasses on top of the Darth Vader helmet.

There were so many characters that's impossible to keep up. There were so many creepy-ass, like, jokes in this film. Like, I know it was an older time, but even for, when did this come out, 2012? 2012. Even for 2012, it was like, man, those are some bad creepy jokes. Yeah. And I mean like especially It's just low brow, right?

If you watch the earlier ones, there's definitely like There's a lot of scenes Where I'm just imagining how uncomfortable it was for like The one woman The one woman in the I'm yeah In like a small like not well ventilated space With like people that I don't

I'm not gonna I'm not going to say that they're stinky, but You're not going to say it You just can imply it I think the likelihood might be like a little higher Than the general like population It's a greasy film yeah There's some creepy vibes going on

And I'm not trying to be mean They're poorly written characters Like the women in this film They're just like they are Oh of course Horribly written Just like stereotypes of like Either they're manipulative

because they want to be with a man or they're just like, you know, it's just very, it is like how I think someone who's obsessed with franchise movies in Star Wars and hasn't like watched or seen anything else or interacted with real people how they would write a female character. Like that's... Yeah, it's not a new thing though either. Because like part of the Spoonie controversy was this weird video they made together. where Spoonie is like lying in bed with Lindsay Alice on one arm and one of the other Channel Awesome women in the other and the joke was that one of them loved that they'd just fucked Spoonie and the other one was regretting it and they were like really into leaning into the regret and it was like what the fuck man this is like what is it wrong with you it's funny at all

yeah what the fuck yeah I was going to add atop the fourth wall the movie to my watch list but I see I already logged it as a one out of ten. Okay. I don't remember watching that. That's the Linkara movie. One of the guys? Oh, that one. Yeah, because they all have movies or had plans to make movies.

I don't know why. That was just such a trend at the time. That's crazy. Maybe I should give it a second chance. Don't. Maybe we really need to do our movies and then do a crossover. I think that's what would really. I think it would turn out better.

I'd like to see. I think it would turn out better. You know, like, I don't know. I've made, you know, vague kind of like filming projects. I think the videos that I made when I was like 15 and junior high were better than any of these three movies. You know, some of my April Fool's videos are kind of like, you know, a showcase of like writing and coordination between different actors, even if it's long distance. There's still like a final product being edited together that's way more coherent than like any of these things.

Yeah, I filmed a music video. It turned out fine. I think it would turn out a bit better. I think, you know, the bar is low. The bar is low. The thing is, like, I feel like people who want to make something who are way too, like, self-conscious about how the product will be, they're likely to just not make anything. Exactly.

If they tried a little harder, they could. probably make something good. Then on the other end of the spectrum, you have people who maybe should sit and think and plan and process things a little more before they just go throw something out there and try to make something. So it's like those two people, they need to be friends and, you know, find the right balance. Yeah. I know exactly what you mean. Are you in contact with Lindsay Ellis? No, just I, you know, through Nebula, I've, I've, I haven't talked to her no.

I was just curious because I would be dying to know. I would be dying to know whose idea it was to call her the nostalgia chick. Was it her idea or was it dugs? That's a question that I really want to answer. There was like a competition. There was a competition. Thank you, Alex. Alex with the lore, please.

Okay, cool. Yeah, I'm glad to watch this video now. Oh, yeah. Yeah, there were like three. finalists to this competition on the website and she won. So she got the moniker. Okay. The other two were other characters in the universe.

So it was Doug's idea. He's like, I'm looking for a nostalgia chick. Yeah, all of this was Doug's idea. It really feels like the internet used to be a totally different place. I don't know when it changed, but it just feels like a totally different place. It's that there were less things to watch. and so even though those things were worse, they were the best things to watch.

And so that's, you know. And they were free. Yeah, and free. And like, you know, people wanted to do internet shit. Cable TV was still bullshit, you know, like seven minutes of ads for 30 minute program, right? You don't get to decide what you watch. Like the appeal to internet content was there before internet content was like any good or before there was a, good content that you could

fill up your day with it or whatever well now NBC is obsessing about how do we get Jimmy Fallon onto the trending page you know it's yeah yeah I guess that's part of it yeah but I think an interesting thing to bring up though is the I'm pretty sure the first Phantom Menace Plinket Review came out in 2012 oh yes

that changed the landscape so contrasting those yeah I feel like that was more of like how you do it like he's playing a character in that video he's doing skits even but there's something at the heart of it and there's like a focus to it and it's like some video essay yeah exactly yeah so it finds the right balance of knowing what it is and distancing himself from like this it doesn't feel like an eco project like yeah i think i think the nostalgia critic is like self-aware enough to know that he's very very lucky that he was at the right place and the right time because if he started making content

today it wouldn't like no one would care no one like no one we've we've already a evolved past like that type of like quality slash character right and then B it's like what's your flagship video you know like what's what's the one thing where it's like you know it would go But like if I didn't have a history on YouTube and I released my Kimba video today, I think it would do pretty well still. You know, I think I'd be able to name, make a name for myself. There's like flagship videos that you could have confidence in just being like, yeah, that would do well, right? What's nostalgia critics flagship video? I don't think, does he have one?

It's more like moments like that when the room controversy happened and you're like dressed up as Tommy and did that video mocking. him. It was more stuff like that. And what I find so fascinating about him is that he doesn't really run away or hide from this stuff. He's quite Yeah, I respect that. He's like weirdly amicable. Yeah. He went on the channel double toasted and did like a

full interview where like they were going in like asking some of the harder questions. And there's this whole like business structure to the way Channel Awesome, he he wasn't the CEO. There was another dude who was kind of like a faceless

like who nobody really knows who was the CEO because Doug saw himself as the talent so he didn't want to do any of the like business stuff. So there was this weird like distance and I don't know the whole way it was structured seems to like feed into the idea of how

he saw himself and how this like idea of the character and propping up the critic and all of that. But man, it is a different time, a different era. I do respect.

that it seems like he's mostly like like like you said if not like dealing with the criticism and then like an approachable way or just ignoring it I think that's kind of like an older or I don't know what that I feel like that's more rare I feel like if a creator facing this type of criticism constantly and callouts and stuff would use their large platform to try to hit back you know yeah create drama content out of it I mean that's like an ecosystem a huge ecosystem in YouTube that sustains careers. Gets clicks. So he never

did that, you know, when he totally When he uploads a video when he's just like sat in a chair, just being himself talking about a movie. Those are the best ones. I don't mind it. I've watched a few of those. Like, I'm fine with it. You like seems to know what he's talking about with a bunch of these movies and he

is fine. Yeah. But then it's when this character is whipped out. There's just something about it. I've never liked it. It just, yeah, it feels like a fact like you're going through the motions like correct me if I'm wrong he's still doing like one nostalgia critic video a week

like the title a nostalgia critic video like those things those things have always been like just check this off pump it out like

I don't does he even fucking watch the movie before the review or is he just watching it as he's recording sort of thing, right? Like, they seem just absolute assembly line material. When he's done it for so long that it's no longer nostalgic. Like he did, um, I looked at the channel.

He did like Scoob the other day. That was like from a handful of years ago. Like, oh yeah. No, he's dropped. I don't get it. He's dropped the, I'm doing nostalgic movies. He's just keeping the name, you know, because that's what people click on. all of it. So many videos.

So long he's been doing it. When you're doing one per week, yeah, you run out. I feel like he could like do an, like if he were to change his formula and, you know, make something a little more like a modern like video essay, like critical, just like an earnest type of thing with a little bit more of like better editing. But he literally does those. Yeah. Just him sitting on it.

That's what we were talking about. He straight up does those. But if he like marketed it differently, you know, just like changed a. a couple of things. I feel like he'd do very well with that. I feel like it'd be received quite positively. I mean, no, there's a good chunk of people. I'm looking at the channel right now. I mean, you know, over 50,000 on average for those types of videos. Yeah. Some of them breaking 100K, Superman won like 150K. That's not too bad for, yeah, for that type of review where you're literally just turn on the camera and talk. Yeah, that's not bad at all.

Like in the landscape of those reviews, I think generally people do want, for like movie reviews, they want something with like a bit more editing unless you're like Chris Stuckman. It's just so saturated. People are doing such high quality stuff now. There's just so much available of film criticism. Yeah. Yeah. It's a different landscape.

I'm trying to figure out exactly what I'm doing too. We all are. Everybody's winging it. Yeah. I mean, I think that's also part of why so many other creators like make videos on nostalgia critic and analyze this era and what happened, what went wrong. And because it is like as a creator as someone making YouTube videos, it's like a kind of partly a cautionary tale, but also like what could have been of this era of the internet.

There's just such like a fascination over it. I don't know. I can't explain it. Yeah. Shout out to Doug's favorite movie being Brazil, 1985. Because that's fucking based. That's fucking based. Dude is a better critic than Jeremy Johns, hands down.

I'm surprised he didn't show up. Like, honestly, it's funny because Jeremy Johns is like way worse at like... articulating what he enjoys about a movie, going into anything substantive about movies, right? Like, personally, his taste is just, like, kind of awful. But even though, you know, that's subjective. But whenever I hear Jeremy Johns talking about movies, it's a very simplistic, like, he kind of just lists off things that happen. So even though he's not doing it in the same way that nostalgia critic did,

where he's not showing the clips, Jeremy Johns is barely making jokes. when he does it's like blackface or whatever you know he he has a lot of the same problems and they're even worse but he doesn't get made fun of like nostalgia critic and I think the reason why is because Jeremy Johns isn't doing like a character yeah skit movie sort of thing and there's not putting himself out there like that yeah there's no ambition there yeah there's not a huge like fucking squad ensemble and company and drama like the nosed nostalgia critic's story, there's just so much in here, and there's so much lore and, like, you know, he appears as so much more of a character, too.

Like, he thinks he's Bugs Bunny, as my notes suggest. As Jeremy Johns, like, kind of pretends to be a real person. Yeah, he does, like, Jim Carrey, like, faces, like, he's the Musk or something. He loves doing that kind of stuff. Yeah, unironically, Nostalgia Critic, way better than, Jeremy Jones. Yes. What do you mean you guess?

I mean, yeah, sure. Damn right. All right, what do you give it out of ten? Boldly fleet? Is there any more lore that you want to share that you feel is like relevant or interesting? Um, I don't know. I feel like we've covered a good chunk of it. But it just like, it just makes me sad, honestly.

Yeah. I feel like talking to you guys about it has been quite therapeutic, to be honest, because I've just been sitting on these feelings for a couple of couple days. Like, it's, it's good to talk about it. And like, it's, there are aspects of this whole story, you know, that are, I think are redeeming in, in the fact that like there was a person who had ambitions and tried to make something, you know, out of the love of making movies. You know, there's some of that there. But it is just all mired in this ego and this lack of self-awareness that is really painful to like sit through and experience.

So yeah, I'm glad to have talked about it with you guys. I'll just say that. And I'm giving this a one out of ten. Alex? Yeah. I'd give it lower if I could. It's,

it's just unbearable. It's utterly unbearable. Yeah, easy half star. I just, I just don't know what they were thinking of this. And I'm giving this one. a two out of ten who

which I don't know you know like people say it's the worst of the three I think the first two are much worse I think the first two are just like so devoid of anything even approximating trying right

whereas this one it tries and fails in some ways kind of succeeds in minor ways that the you know the other ones didn't It's there's more heart and effort going into this one than the previous two. So two out of ten. Nice. Loved it.

You know, I might be in this film's like top percentile for like ratings because I think everybody else on the planet gave it a win. I mean, I might be its biggest fan. Yeah, I think it genuinely, I think it might be like the worst YouTuber movie. I think it might be I've seen a bunch of them I'm trying to think if I've got like airplane mode

F the prom Smosh the movie I think it's worse than all of them I'd rather watch any of those than this ever again like that's spectacular I don't know

I don't know if I agree that's that's pretty impressive that's kind of amazing actually yeah I don't know if I agree on that Which one of those would you rather watch than boldly flee? Well, some of those I haven't seen, but I feel like, you know, you listed off, listing off like Smosh movies, like, it feels like they have more of a production and it's less fun cringe. You know?

I don't, I guess I don't see the fun cringe in this. That's kind of my hand up. Yeah. Like, with all the context of the drama and everything, it's just. is too much for me. It's just cursed. Knowing that the people were miserable, mostly, largely making it really

makes it much harder. Like, if I knew, like, they were all having a fun time and participate, it totally different. Totally, like, that changes everything. It really does. Exactly. Knowing that it was a shitty time, and they were, like, being dictated to do all these cringy dialogue, like, fuck, like, that sounds like a nightmare.

You know, just kind of like how I like Requiem for a dream, you know, like, I think I think I just I I enjoy sadness. Are you comparing to boldly fleets a requiem to dream? So the sad, the sad cringe is fun cringe for me. I enjoy sadness. Yeah. All right, dude.

When I press the keys, it all gets reversed. The sound of loneliness makes me happier. That was bright. All right. Questions. Let's do some questions then. Questions. Let's do some questions from the Sardonicas community.

Head over to the suggestion thread over on the subreddit when that's posted. If you want to leave questions for future episodes, just like Joe R.C. did. But question for each of us. Jake, what is the thing you're carrying? Hmm. Yeah, that's a great question. A baby.

I'm carrying a 4K Blu-ray of Tobolbly Flea at all. times. Adam, which director are you saying your movie sucks to and which movie? I think if we were to go like historically like mostly M. Knight.

True. Yeah. Yeah. Has to be. I think that was, yeah, that was my early concept video that was just realized like early in the channel. What about Derek? No, Derek's movies are

great though. Oh, okay. I love Derek's movies. Great, yeah. And the question for me is, Alex, if you hate everything, does that mean you hate, stop making sense? Yeah, you got me, man. Right, let's do this one from Matt Smith, Reddit.

Since you're now covering one of his movies, would you ever be willing to have Doug Walker as a guest on your show? I know you've mocked and heavily criticized him a lot, but he's never let that get to him before, especially with his relationship with only plays, as we mentioned. collaborating with them getting along just fine and laughing along with all their jokes directed towards him on their videos and podcast. He also let the host of Double Toasted do the harshest criticism and controversies about him.

And he responded rather maturely. I've also watched quite a few of his videos where he isn't wearing silly outfits and doing sketches. And he seems to have a genuine love and appreciation for film in all its aspects. I think he'd be very capable of having a very good mature discussion about film with the three of you. Yeah, have him on and review Brazil. Yeah, never say never. I'm not planning on it. Could be interesting.

Yeah. I would be happy to talk to him. Not unwilling, but too busy for the next few months at least to even be thinking about it. Yeah. No, we're flying through these. Jizzis has one for Jake. Going back to the discussion about funny games, how come you hate the movie but have Blood Meridian as one of your favorite books?

Both explore themes of violence and try to make it unpleasant, repetitive, and boring, using their respective medium tools. I feel like most of your criticisms of funny games could also be used against Blood Meridian. So in your opinion, what makes Blood Meridian a better exploration of the theme of violence? Yeah, I mean, a part of it's just personal taste. I mean, and they're totally different mediums. I think like a novel, you can have so much, you know, tangents and all various sorts of little plots and stories and stuff. Like, I do feel like funny games is kind of a single-minded experience of like this is going to kind of.

of mess with you. And I don't think that Blood Meridian's going in trying to kind of just mess with you or intentionally trying to disturb you. I think it is just kind of very much trying to explore the reality of the violence of America's creation. You know, the United States' expansion. And it deals with that in a surreal way and explores. And the violence is also very surreal. Like I do, it is a disturbing book, but it is heightened, uh, in a very surreal way. Yeah. So, um, I just find a lot of more of a redemptive like qualities in that, not, not redemptive's not the right word, but I just, I find like there's more meat to chew on that, that whole experience than there is in funny games, which to me felt a bit, uh, one note. Yeah. I guess that's,

that's, that's where I put it. Games weren't even funny enough. No, yeah, the games in Blood-Marie and are much fun here, so that's part of it too. We have an interesting one here from MCV-M-E-Y-T. I started a stalking job recently and been listening back through every episode and can't recall hearing this ever answered. Stocking. What did you hear? Stalking. A-L-K versus O-C-K.

I was like, what? Stocking. You're the paparazzi or like you're serving people like warrants or serving? I just started stalking people. I got so caught up. I was like, oh, stalking shelves probably. Yeah. Where did the opening theme slash jingle of Saldonikas come from?

Did Adam just come up with it? And if so, what was he intentionally trying to make a tune? Or was he intentionally in trying to make a tune for the podcast? Yeah. Yeah. No, I was like, I'll do a jingle and, you know, even though I had never written a jingle before. Like, I don't know, I feel musically competent. enough in terms of composition.

That's one of my strengths, I feel. Still need to figure out what the hell I'm doing with mixing and mastering or maybe find someone else that can help. It's an iconic jingle. It's very catchy. Oh, thank you. I love the jingle. It's catchy.

Yeah, yeah, I wrote it in like... I love that last note. Like an hour? Nice. Yeah. I just like fucked around and was made some tweaks along the way to me writing music, whether it's with lyrics or not. is often just a matter of like fucking around

and then hearing, okay, what works, and then playing it enough times that you can really whittle down like, okay, we're taking this part out, we're moving this part over slightly. You know, it's like a puzzle piece and you just kind of have to repeat the process enough to be able to fully formulate your perspective, on what about it sounds good and what about it could be improved.

You know, as long as you just do it enough times, then, you know, it'll turn into something. Yeah, I feel like it hit the tones really well. It's like goofy but not like obnoxious like derp de derp like. No, yeah. There's no like glockenspiel like, ha, ha, ha, like it's not like we're a joke, but there's something kind of like sardonic. about the tone. Say that again.

Yeah, thank you. As soon as I find someone to help me with fucking mixing and mastering and figure out how to even find out who I would trust and how to find a person how to know how to trust a person with that. Yeah, I find that process so interesting mixing and mastering.

And maybe I can have a cleaner, better mixed version of that same jingle because I keep all my original recording files for everything. I'm a data hoarder. I literally saw a concert last night spelling with three L's. Really great artists.

Very small personal show in Vancouver. And I literally, like, at the merch table, just like asked her, I'm like, okay. Like, if I can compose and I can perform it, I can write, but I just have no idea what I'm doing with mixing and mastering. Like, what do you suggest? She didn't really give, like,

A helpful answer. She was like, oh yeah, just like, do it yourself. But yeah, I didn't want to, like, bother her for too time. I'm like, that didn't make any sense. I'm not sure she'd understood what my issue was, but I'll figure it out someday. That's definitely an underappreciated thing. Yeah, that's another thing where, like, if I were to sign up with a label and just go into the system that already exists, then that would be set up for me.

So exactly what we were talking about earlier. however labels pay you like fucking like a fraction of a percent of like what they make off of your music and then you don't own your own music i don't want to not own my own music like yeah that sucks it's too personal for me like i could i could see myself doing like a label project for something or like being on someone else's project on a label in that kind of way but like i don't like the idea of not owning these pieces of art that are like obviously very personal to me. Like, that just doesn't feel right. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I hear that. Fobtack has one for us. In recent episodes, Adam has mentioned how he doesn't want to watch movies that he knows he won't get

anything from due to not having enough time to waste on them. If you could experience any slash all movies by instantly uploading them to your mind, would you choose to experience them this way? Adam would, would you feel less averse to watching things like Marvel movies if you only had to spend two seconds to get them into your brain. And for the rest of the sards, if you could use this tactic to instantly upload entire collections of films to your brain within a few seconds, would you,

or is spending actual time on the viewing experience more important to the way we receive films? Personally, it bums me out, but I won't have enough time in my life to experience all the art that interests me. True. I think I'd use this instant brain upload technique, if not somewhat sparingly.

I mean, this is science fiction and we don't have enough information about, like when you say upload the film is it it took two seconds in real life but you felt the length of the movie is it that you now instantly have a memory of having watched the movie even if you didn't and you're just left with like the after absorption like i don't know because i feel like sometimes i feel like the experience of watching the movie is a part of the movie sometimes not just the movie itself, but like the environment you were in and the, you know, the setup and the audience or lack thereof, like sometimes that's a part of the experience. So I don't, I don't know. I would have

to, I would have to see more proof of concept. So Elon hit us up when the brain chip thing is working and then, you know, well, I have a bit of an insight here maybe. I don't know if I do, but about this concert because like this is literally there are people online who sell the services of you know like summarizing books and it's like AI will summarize the book

and you can read it in 15 minutes and it's like you're just reading a summary that's not reading the book I forgot that was a thing actually like there are people who are like yeah I read 10 books today because of this app right and I'm like the thought like it's just so anti-art

and the fact that they already talk about books that way how there's just like a point to be extracted out of books is so anti-art. You know, that's not how anyone should be reading anything or experiencing art, in my opinion. I think it's stupid. Like, yeah, it's, it makes no sense. The point of art is to experience it. And if you're worried about there being too much art in the world, be grateful for that, that we have so much. I mean, we would value it differently if there wasn't enough great art to experience, you know, like if there was a finite resource.

Like the fact that there is infinite, that there's so much. wonderful fantastic art to explore that you will never get to experience is a good thing you know like you you will die wishing yeah you saw some more movies uh probably but that's not really the point of life is it in my yeah which is why it's important to have a professional who uh spends their working hours watching movies curating everything for you so that you know what to not waste your time on yeah tell you what to you what you to watch. So you are dependent, you're dependent on it. That's the value of criticism, yeah. Yeah. And yet here you are listening for free with an ad blocker on. Wow. What the fuck?

What the fuck are you doing? You have an ad blocker on? Yeah, you. I'm calling you out. Sorry. Yeah. I mean, in a way, you could just listen to our podcasts and and then surmise what the movie is about. And that's like experiencing the film. Yeah. Except our podcast. Podcasts is probably longer than most films you could watch. Oh, you know what we should sell? We should sell summarized versions of our podcasts. When don't we summarize the whole like fucking, yeah, like episode one through 198, like Adam Mad, talk.

It would just be like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Is Gemini not doing that yet? Is it not like integrated in YouTube? I'm surprised there's not like a button. Oh, shit. It's like, this is what happens in this movie? Yeah. If it isn't a thing, it's going to be soon.

Alex wonders why people think he's British. Time-saving bullshit AI is a waste. Like, it's such a nightmare. It's such, like, capitalist propaganda bullshit. Like, oh, you need this service. The entire concept of all AI or? No, just like these services and companies being like, oh, you don't have time to do the things that are fun. Like, you don't have time to read.

So you have a summary. You know, give people more time, less working hours and more distance. There you go. Like fucking all the billionaires are stealing your time. They're pretending like they're not. Anyway. Yeah. Yeah.

I got an ad before a video that was like, isn't doing narration for videos hard? Doesn't that suck? Why don't you use this AI and use these AI voices? So then you don't have to spend more time mastering a skill of like narration. Just choose your voice and it will do it perfectly every time. You can just change all the sliders and it'll be perfect. earth ignores him. Yeah.

There's something just gross about the idea of like, it's almost like farming art. You know, I feel like. Yeah. Factory. I feel like no one would, yeah, would resist this technology if it was a thing. I feel like it would kind of only have value

if you had the weird like, a portal open and someone from the future gave you it type thing. And you're the only one with it. Then maybe it would be a bit more interesting. Because then you just be, you'd be so over. powered compared to everyone else because you could have every film ever ever made in your head um but as like you guys were saying it defeats the whole point

of the uh yeah the choice of watching you know to boldly flee or uh something good if the technology existed then i would use it for movies that i know for sure that i'm like just not interested in watching or never going to... Movies that I'm not intending on watching in the next five years, and then if the experience in my brain is the same as if I would have watched it, but I just didn't actually experience it, but I have the knowledge of the movie like I would if I watched it, then if, let's say in five years,

I know about how good the movie is, but I just like, you know, every good movie you kind of want to re-experience in five years anyway. Right? Every movie that I love, I'm like, oh, yeah, I would watch it. that again, like every few years. So you know what? I'd still be able to watch the movie. I suppose it could be more of like a choice there.

And then I'd be the most, I'd be the most intelligent film critic of all time. Because when something happens on the screen, I go, that's a reference to O'Hazard-Balthazar, actually. There you. That's a reference to castration movie. It would be like the difference between eating a skittal and stuff. sitting down for like a three-course mission star meal or something. Yeah. I'm just going to inject the new Fire Marvel.

I'm going to sit there and watch the to boldly flee, you know. I'm going to soak in every second knowing that I could have condensed it, but I'm going to sit there and absorb every single millisecond of it. It's like the stuff that I want to go faster in life are like the DMV and going to the dentist, not experiencing a film. Yeah, like doing the taxes. Yeah. Yeah.

Out spreadsheets. Yeah. Automate that. Yeah. AI do something useful. I mean, you can with AI right now. You can automate spreadsheets. Well, let's focus on that instead of trying to write a book for us or summarize shit.

Mm-hmm. Good question. Yeah. Yeah, that was a good one. Let's do this one from Butter, 467. This question is meant more for Adam and Alex, but of course Jake can answer as well. I'll leave the room. I don't know why Jake is, like, excluded from some reason.

I'll go stand in the corner. This is for non-normies. Just a heads-up. I'm a newbie. I got to put up with it. But it's assuming you haven't, well, anyway, I'll read the rest of it. Since you guys are talking about a YouTuber film and you guys have seen plenty of YouTuber movies, what would you say is the absolute worst one of them all?

It's kind of getting out this earlier a little bit. Have you seen many, Jake? Have you seen any? No, this is actually a good question just for the two of you. this actually applies to the two of you rather than me I haven't seen it in the end um depends what you mean by worst

what's floating through your head depends what you mean by YouTuber also right I'm trying to think I'm trying to think of like yeah exactly Will Smith is an ether fucking Turkish director Nuri Bilgajalan is a YouTuber if you yeah he posts is like

making of fucking two hour long documentaries on his making of his films. The guy that did, yeah, about dry grasses. He's got a YouTube channel. I didn't know that. And it's so funny. I opened the tab and I kind of made like a gassed noise earlier unrelated to what you were saying. And it was about me clicking on one of his videos titled,

Why Winter Sleep is my favorite film of the decade. I'm like, what? You're not allowed to say that about your own movie. And then I clicked on it and I realized, oh, it's a re-upload of someone else's and it's credited and he just the director liked to the person's video and is sharing it on his channel sort of thing. Oh, that's funny. Yeah, worst, uh, the most disturbing one is a film called My Little Dashy. The mini movie.

Right, not heard of this one. Which YouTuber made this? I don't know, it was just a brony. Right. Yeah. Shout out to My Little Dashie. All right. It's funny for those you know.

Yeah, you should watch it. I'm not going to look that up ever. Oh, why not? It just sounds ominous. Maybe I could recommend it someday. Okay. The mini movie. It's a fan fiction, okay.

That's good. Alex, you would like it. Yeah? It's not for Normie eyes. Yeah, yeah, you would. Okay. I'll let it to my watch. No, Alex, Alex, you would like it.

Okay, it's 27 minutes long. Yeah. It's a short film. to my phone. Yeah, I don't know. The Logan Paul fucking YouTube premium movie The Thinning.

The Thinning was, yeah. I never actually saw those. Airplane mode was horrendous too. I'd imagine airplane mode's probably worse. But yeah, the thinning was a one out of ten for you. Yeah, it's trying to be airplane. The Fine Bros movie,

F the Prom. That's quite a good pick. That's more of a like... I forgot they made a movie. You have resources. Yeah. Like, this is what you chose to make, you know? Like, what are you doing? What are, like, waste?

It's like the inverse problem of to boldly flee. Where, like, there's just no excuse. They're not filming it on, like, for five bucks. They, like, spend actual money. Use up all these opportunity costs. And that's what they settle on. I feel similarly about the Smosh movie, too. I just don't, I don't get what.

It took so long for, like, everyone being chained to this idea of like, oh, it has to be the YouTube channel, the movie. Like, it can't be like a rack-a-racker thing where it's like, yeah, we've learned all these skills through our YouTube channel, and then we're like just making these sick ass, like, amazing horror films. That's the thing is like, if someone's successful and especially talented enough, they never feel like YouTube, YouTuber movies, because they're just movies and they're like, oh, we're doing it with A-24, right? Exactly, yeah. With the exception being Joel Haver, because he actually posts his movies to his YouTube channel. Yeah. Yeah, that's another good example of the way to do it more so, where it feels earnest and genuine. We love Joel Haver.

Anything Shane Dawson has made as well? Shane Dawson sucks. Yeah. Epic documentaries, epic comedies, epic comedies, which is an all-round movie legend, I guess. Yes. Yeah. So, I mean, there's like a lot to choose from, right? It's just endless the amount of these that are made. Like, I fred the movie.

Yeah, Shane Dawson pretends he's making, like, documentaries. Yeah. And people were calling them that. Yeah, for some reason. I remember there was a big one in 2020. Like, everyone was like, the new Shane doc has dropped. Fuck off. Everyone is losing their minds.

Jesus grace. Yeah, they're like vlogs. Yeah. It's just cool what it is. I mean, if somebody, if somebody, if somebody's experience with media is like letting Netflix decide what to put on for them, then yeah, sure. It's a documentary

because I'm sure there's a lot of similar shit on Netflix. Yeah, there's some really bad docs on Netflix nowadays, yeah. The inverse, I guess, of this question from Nieminen is, which YouTuber would you like to see you make a movie? There's this guy called Man Carrying Thing. I'd like to see a movie from him. Yeah, I don't know about that I don't know about that guy

It'd probably be very cringe You know, we could always We could take every single one of your videos And like remove any Like outro or text And then just have it play No yeah, just have it play in one long film Yeah

It'd be 24 minutes on Yeah, 24 minute film And just kind of see, you know, if you remove the ability to know where one starts and ends, see if it almost turns into like a different story. We're like, oh, a new character is being introduced, even though it's like a different video initially. But maybe it like works. Maybe there's a way to make it work. That sounds like an interesting. What?

Better idea. Okay. You take each shot. Not each video. Each shot. So each cut. Then you throw it in a generator that randomizes them. And then you have a film.

Ah, this is such a good idea. Somebody with autism. Please, please, please. We have to do this. Somebody makes this. Some of the autistic people. If that last one sounds too complicated, do the previous idea. Okay?

Whatever you think you can do, somebody has to make this. We need man carrying thing, the movie. I could make an art project out of it, like Shia LaBuff, just sit in a theater and watch it for, you know, however long it takes. Again, like 24 minutes. Yeah, that sounds like fucking hell. That sounds like the worst thing I would ever do that. No, yeah, that's why someone else should do it. You don't have to do it.

No, they shouldn't. No, that's horrible. I'm saying I should. You know what? There are so many YouTubers who I feel like would make good films, honestly, to change the topic to the actual topic. I mean, I love Joel Haver, and I totally get why he wants to make his own stuff the way he does on YouTube.

But part of me is like, what if he did get like, crazy budget. Like, what would he do with that? You know, but I also get, he doesn't want to do that. And I think there are lots of, like, YouTubers and people online who make stuff that honestly would benefit from having a little bit of ambition to actually try to do something a little bigger. Or connections. Sometimes it's both.

That's the thing. It's like, it's such a, no producers are just like holding out their hand and being like, you, random YouTuber, come make a movie. Like, it's people like Raqa Raqa who... Some are. Not quite rare. I mean, I feel like, like, Raka, they went through like a traditional route through like the Australian,

what, they got like a grant through Australia. Yep. Good job, Australia. But there's like an infrastructure there to support people making films. And it's like the pipeline from the internet, to traditional filmmaking is like not really there. And for, but what YouTubers do have is, you know, they have an audience, resources that they can use.

But all people who make YouTube videos are all loners, isolated. They don't know how to work with other people. Like, those are skills that it's just, to have the skills to be able to, like, make creative stuff online and be artistic, but also be a businessman and build, like, the infrastructure for a film project. Like that's, it's too much for a lot of people. And like,

it makes sense why we don't get better YouTube movies and why more YouTubers aren't trying to make stuff because it's, it's, it's hard. It's hard out there. All right, we've got a hard out pretty soon.

So I'm going to give my answer real quick. No, no, no. Take your time. Take your time. It's okay. No, I'm going to be fast if I want to. You're not going to bully me. One answer, I've got two answers.

One answer, me. I would like to make a movie. I just, exactly. I'm bogged down. by the practicality of it and my arms are broken in health issues right now. I would love for, I'll, I'll finance your film. No, yeah, I don't even think financing it is going to be the hard part.

It's just going to be like finding people I trust. I think I need to start doing like some shorts first or whatever. You know, I did a music video, but something with more of like a narrative structure. But again, you know, if I want it to look good, then I need to like find the right people to trust. And then also like actors, it's just I need to restructure and have more security and what I'm doing currently right now and then I can focus on that. So baby steps, one step at a time. Have you written, have you written scripts? Uh, I have many, many, many, many concepts and like ideas and characters. Um, and I've, you know, I've written scripts for bullshity things at a

young age and I have like outlines for what I would want to achieve in a film or how it would want to be, I would want it to be shot and how it would connect to like characters. I think I function really, really well in like a collaborative writing environment. So, you know, something where I'm like bouncing ideas off of another person and creating it with them. Also, doing it that way helps with the fact that I have tendinitis and can't type much anyway. So that would be my preferred way of doing it. If you, if you ever want a co-writer, I like to put, I like to put words on the page. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. I write scripts. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, maybe we'll make something. Okay. Okay. All right. Let's let's, uh, let's have a call and brainstorm sometimes.

actually. Hell yeah. Yeah, legit. There are ways. Yeah, yeah. Answer for not me, lasagna cat. Lazzania cat,

hands down. A thousand percent. I would consider both sex survey results and the pipe strip to be films. Their feature length.

Alex, did you say who you'd pick? Um, I don't need it because I got my little dashy, you know, which I, I pulled up on YouTube and just scrolled through and I've actually seen this form. Oh, you've seen it. Yeah, you loved it. I was right. Um, I'd just, I'd carved it out of my memory. Because it was so good.

It was released 11 years ago. Okay. Yeah. Uh, I don't know. I'd let it media. Oh, wait. Um, I don't know. No, they made space cab.

You can't. What, what are you talking about? yeah Jake do you want to do one more quick question or no is up to you well real quick right speed round ding ding ding ding okay jack the manipulated can cap us off here what are your thoughts on people recently complaining about getting Pedro Pascal fatigue after him being in multiple movies released right now do you think it's a fair complaint have you experienced this with him or any other actors um he's better than Chris Pratt he's like an actual actor so I mean if he's in yeah it's way more

Yeah. And a lot of these people, like a Jai Courtney or someone that's being like post where it's like, why are they trying to make this a thing? Whereas he actually feels like when I see him, he's actually good. No, yeah. Like I can't remember the last time he was really bad in it in any time. I think the complaints are legitimate and that is legitimate to feel fatigue over Pedro Pascal. But, you know, even though he's not a Joaquin Phoenix in terms of transforming into different characters, he's still way better than Chris Pratt. You know, I care more about whether or not someone's going in every movie and can't act, you know, The Rock.

Yeah. Yeah. I like him a lot. I like him as a person. I think he, you know, I like how he sticks up for trans rights and all that. He seems like a good dude. And I also like how he seems to be using the clout he has from being in big blockbusters, like Fantastic Four, to help help smaller films get off the ground. Like, I think he kind of rescued Todd Haynes' recent film that looked like it wasn't going to happen because Joaquin dropped.

So, oh shit, that's happening. I didn't even know. Yeah, I believe so. I think he's stepping in to do that. Oh, fuck. That's awesome. Yeah. Good shit.

I like him. I agree. Yeah, I thought that was done for. Yeah, there's a weird new that people talk on Twitter about how he grabs women too much. And some people are saying he's in the closet gay or something. I don't know. We're not going to talk about that. We'll save it for another time because we ran out of time.

But thank you for your questions, everybody. Yeah. That's a good. This is a long one. It's your recommendation, Jake. You guys know what my recommendation is. We discussed this a little bit to coordinate it with an upcoming film. The film I think we're going to be talking about next week, right?

If we're all able to see it, not next week. Next time we record is highest to lowest. So I'm recommending high, high and low by Kurosawa, which I think would make it the first Kurosawa film we review, right? Or you guys have reviewed. Somehow, yes. I think so. He's come up now and again, but never like a full wreck.

Well, I mean, like, I did a watchalong for two Kurosawa movies, but. Okay. I don't think I've... Yeah, I haven't done, we haven't done like a podcast thing or anything. Well, Curasala, you know, I hear he might make some good movies. I've seen high and low, but it's been a while ago, so I'm excited to rewatch it. I think I watched it a month ago, but it was great, and I... I'm happy to watch it again.

Awesome. Yeah. Cool. And then, yeah, so highest to lowest, the spikely reinterpretation or joint. It appears it comes out September 5th for everybody. So we should be able to watch it as long as it's not such a big flop that it disappears from theaters by the time I'm back from TIF. It should be fine Oh I'm seeming that it's some streaming

Yeah it's on Apple TV Oh is it streaming? Oh okay I can do it I can watch it at home Oh sure fuck yeah Meta awesome internet never mind All right if you don't want to be spoiled For Akira Kurosawa's High and Low Watch it before this next episode comes out

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