Sardonicast - Sardonicast #20: Chris Stuckmann, The Piano Teacher

Episode Date: November 7, 2018

Website: https://sardonicast.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Sardonicast Twitter: https://twitter.com/sardonicast Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/sardonicast Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sardonicast Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/9vG73zS Ralph's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/ralphthe... Alex's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/IHEOfficial Adam's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/YourMovi... Alex's Twitter: https://twitter.com/IHE_OFFICIAL Ralph's Twitter: https://twitter.com/ralphsepe Adam's Twitter: https://twitter.com/2gay2lift Adam's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/YMS Intro music by: https://www.youtube.com/user/anUnkind... Fanart: https://old.reddit.com/r/Sardonicast/... https://old.reddit.com/r/Sardonicast/... https://old.reddit.com/r/Sardonicast/... 00:00 - Intro 7:00 - Video Games 36:04 - The Piano Teacher (SPOILERS) 1:31:45 - Q&A Ralph's Recommendation for Next Episode is Don't Look Now (1973).

Hey everybody, it's Ralph from YouTube.com slash Ralph a moviemaker. Just here to let you know that my audio messed up for the first half hour of this podcast. So I apologize for that in advance. Yeah, I'm a disappointment, I know. But after a half hour, my audio goes back to normal. So that's that. Anyway, enjoy. This will get stupmanized.

It's got stucanized. And Chris? Get stucmanized. Yay. Hey, he said it. Alright, three, two, one. What's up, everybody? Actually, wait, here's the intro.

So, guys, we did it. We reached a quarter of a million subscribers, 250,000 subscribers, and still growing. The fact that we reached this number in such a short amount of time is just phenomenal. I'm just amazed, thank you all so much. That's a really shitty copy pasta. I have no idea, is the problem.

But, like, I'm on these... So if I... I want to say piracinic. Yeah, right? So I don't know if he's the one that actually said it or not Or if he's just meming someone else that said it But I for people that I watch and or am friends with I don't watch a lot of other content these days because I'm so busy with shit like my album

But I subscribe to their subredits and that's just some The pyocynical subreddit is just so weird It's just such a strange place And so I saw that meme a lot and I couldn't think of anything else in a short amount of time so I just did that. Hey everybody, we're SardanaCast. I'm Adam from your movie sucks. I'm Alex from you to Josh on Sanchrop movie. And I'm Alex from I hear everything. And we got a special guest. Hey, it's the second time I've done this. Hey! So you're in the I feel good about that. You're in the world record book now for, uh, I feel good about that for the first time that's

guest has appeared for a second time on Sardonicast. Guinness, right it. Well, it is the first time that someone's appeared for a second time. Yeah, damn straight. I don't know what that says about me, but I'm willing to embrace whatever it is. It says we love you. Oh, I love you too. How was your week?

It was good, man. I have been so insanely fucking busy editing like, these Halloween special videos I've been doing. I've been doing like these 15 to 30 minute multi-angle discussion videos about different horror films. And I've been doing that for the past week and I've put one out almost every day. Plus I've somehow balanced college. And I honestly don't know how. I really don't know how I've been I've been burning the candle at both that. Fuck it. I threw the candle in the fireplace. I don't even know what's happening right now. Well, I mean, if it's working towards a goal and it's not going to be forever,

it is. You can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Yeah, it'll be worse. I feel good about it. I feel like I was sitting down with my buddy John Flickinger the other day. We have a podcast on our Patreon, and he kind of psychoanalyzed me. He was like, dude, I think you're a workaholic, and I think you have a problem, and I think you need to do nothing for, like, the entire month of November.

and I was like, dude, I think you're fucking right, man. Vacation. Yeah, I'm over here dying with all the, with this schedule I've given myself. I don't know. That sounds kind of boring, taking a month off. It does. You know, that's my problem. I feel like after like a week, you get sick.

That's my problem, yeah. Yeah. After a couple days, man. I don't know if I could ever take a whole month off. I get sick of it. I feel like at that point. I'm just too connected. At that point, I would be like quitting or something.

I feel like I could talk. You know. Like, what do you do yourself for months? I don't know. I don't know. And that's the problem with YouTube. You might find me in a dumpster, like, in a cardboard box. I don't know.

You should just religiously study the primitive technology YouTube channel and then live in the woods for a month. And make really cool shit. And you'll come out a hardened individual. Yeah, I'll be one of those. I'll make a reality show in the woods where I'm naked. And then forget to bring a camera. It's just like me eating berries. Yeah, I forget.

Oh my God. That's a problem with YouTube though, is if you take a break, it's like people forget about you. Unless you have content lined up. I mean, you can theoretically take a break and then still have content come out. That's the fee of it, right? Yeah, I think it depends on how you started. Like if you, like for me, for the past decade, basically, I've been doing at least one video a week. And so that sort of sets a standard.

And if I were to break that, it'd be like, hey, what the fuck? Where'd you go? Are you okay? So, like, I have to always basically keep doing that. And it's not like I'm complaining. I enjoy what I do. But the past few weeks have been busy as fuck. So what you do is you just imagine what a movie coming out next month is going to be like

and make your review based on what you think it'll be. And then if you're right, then you'll look really cool. Yes, here's my pre-planned review of show. Dogs. Yeah. I know what the movie's going to be like. Oh, D. So for those of you who don't know, I, I edit these podcasts.

And while I do that, I'm doing it on my Twitch stream. And for not the last episode, but the one before, I forgot to mention it in the last episode. There was a really funny comment that someone sent to me while I was editing. It was from a user named Seamus. and their comment reads, I had a fever dream a few weeks ago where I was listening to Sardonicast and Ralph killed himself during the podcast.

I woke up and thought it was real for about 30 minutes. And what makes this extra funny is for that to be possible for someone to think that's real, that would mean that you killed yourself in the podcast and I edited it and we published it. That's what makes it really funny. I had to think.

about that for a second. We gotta do that one. Yeah. I was like, this is tasteful. I kept it in. I have to die. Let's make a pact. Let's make a pact.

If we have us die on the show, we have to leave it in. We can change the bet from $50 to suicide. Uploaded in Memorium. Rest in peace for help. I also, there was another thing I forgot to ask for a word. I also, there was another thing I forgot to mention that someone reminded me of. We got the question the other episode, and I guess I'll let Chris answer this question as well. I think the question was something along the lines of what was

your, what is the best narrative experience in gaming, something along those lines? And I forgot to mention ones that are definitely in my top spots. Soma is probably the best. That was an insanely well-done story. I don't know if you played it. Yeah, I did play it. Man. I haven't. Yeah, I downloaded it off the PlayStation store. I thought it was pretty awesome.

Yeah, definitely play that one, Alex. And it's a, you know, it could be a good Halloween excuse, too, because it's kind of a horror game. Very well-done story. And then Undertale is an interesting narrative experience, although I would say so much doesn't. I have a meaning to play Undertale. Oh, crap. Play it, man. Yeah, still haven't got around to it.

I might play on Switch. What about you, Chris? Because we all answered this question the other week. Yeah, I'm a lot. I'm assuming you guys probably talked about the last of us. Yep. That game pretty much floored me. It didn't even feel like a game.

It felt like I was experiencing something real. The first Middle Gear Solid, the first time I played the first one, I beat it in like a week, and then I loved it so much. I sat down and I beat it again in a day, like right after that. I did nothing but play it. It was a summer and I was out of school. The first Metal Gear Solid, the third one, the fourth one, those in particular.

I listened to your guys episode for Spider-Man, the newest one, and I know that some of you skipped the cutscenes. Wow, one of us. Yeah. I skipped on three or four hours in the game. I thought this. This story sucks.

Like, I'm playing Red Dead now, and the cut scenes are great. I actually, I bought that. I'm going to play, that's my plan for the first week of November. Once I finish all these Halloween things, I'm just going to play Red Dead Red Dead Redemption, too.

Yeah, that's all I've been doing since Friday. You need more than a week, man. That is one. big ass game. Have you, have you touched it yet, Alex? Yeah, I've played hours and hours and I looked at my progress today and it was like 30% and I've been playing it for days. It's like, oh my God, yeah. It's good. Jesus Christ, this is long. I think I've played it for like maybe 14 hours or something and I think I'm like 18% through. But I dick around a lot. I dick around so much. I literally, I literally waited for what, 40 minutes.

for a train to come by just so I could get someone hogtied and run them over and take a picture. I just keep like starting bar fights. Yeah. Oh man. Like what I'm that I'm a little disappointed with with the game is that and don't worry I won't spoil anything Chris, but in the first game it used to be that if you ran really fast and knocked people over it wouldn't count towards your like it wouldn't count as a crime. It would just be like, oops, sorry. And so you could manipulate characters and push them in the direction you wanted them to go. And there was this bar where they had a glass window on the top of the bar. So I would push all the patrons up the stairs and push them out the window. And they'd die.

And since it didn't count as me actually assaulting them, nobody would come after me. And so I had this huge pile of bodies outside the bar right next to the door. And then, And after I push all the people out, like there's a bunch more like coming in or whatever. I go back downstairs and I notice this cool feature in the game that when people walk over dead bodies and there's like a pile of blood, they actually leave bloody footprints. So as soon as I go back down to the main floor of the bar, the place looks like the fucking shining. There's like bloody footprints everywhere. And I was like, oh my God. It was insane.

But now when I run into people, people get mad and they call the sheriff. So, there goes that. It's a lot more strict, which I like. And they remember, too. Like, if you fucking die and come back to that town, they're like, oh, that piece of shit. You start with that hard fight. I love this game.

I do. I raged quit for, like, three hours because my horse died. It was very sad. Oh, yeah, mine died all the time. Did you not have a revive? Yeah, well, I died before I could revive it, because I got shot up. Oh, oh.

That was really upset. Yeah. Let's not talk about this too much since Chris hasn't played it. I'm excited to play it though. I really am. I'm looking forward to it. You played the first one I'm assuming, right? Yeah, back in the day. I honestly, I forgot a lot about it, but this is this one I'm really looking forward to. Um, heavy rain I loved too. Heavy rain was a great narrative, I thought. Uh, Beyond Two Souls. Um, I think is a little underrated. Oh. Um, yeah. I really, I really don't like, like, yeah. I make fun of Beyond Detroit become human yet.

Oh, I know you do. I know you do. I've seen your Twitter. I know you like to play Life is Strange a lot. Oh, yeah. That's not what you call it. That's true. Life is strange is more fun than beyond, to make fun of at least. You know.

Yeah. It's much more comical. I actually enjoy the Life is Strange series just because I have a really hilariosity style time playing. it. You must enjoy it since you play it so much. Yeah, it's my favorite game. I just love Chloe. She's such a good person.

Yeah, the... How about the telltale stuff? You guys play that? Some of it. Good. Some of it, yeah. They're out of business already. Yeah. They cancel What game were they working on?

They're working on a lot. Somebody else picked up the line. Yeah, I think. I think some of it. I think somebody else decided to pick it up. Yeah. Yeah, they released two episodes or something, and then they're going out of business.

Yeah, they canceled their employees is what happened. Yeah. Oh, man, that sucks, though. They need some good stuff. Yeah, I'm trying to remember. I played one of their games. I can't remember what it was now. Both among us?

I like that one. That was their best one, in my opinion. Yeah. They're not really, I mean, they say their choice games, but nothing to do really matters all that much. I know. no stories different stories

yeah sometimes I like playing games that don't have like a narrative that are just like simple gaming experiences like most retro games I love new games I love old games but sometimes I just need like a Zelda or a Mario to kind of just relax

and enjoy myself Chris have you played Odd World Abe's Odyssey Uh no I'm trying to get more people to play that game I've already recommended it to Alex in uh Ralph. Yeah, it's PS1. You can get it on Steam. You can get it on PC.

The first two odd world games are like so, so great. I have an okay PS1 collection. That's not more the ones. Don't get the, don't get the HD remake. Don't get the new and tasty. It's a very different. Why not? There's a video by, let's see if I'm remembering who made this video. I think it might have been Caddicarus. Let me just check Oddworld New and tasty

I don't Who made this video Let's see Somebody talk about something else Somebody made it And it was good And it explained everything you want to say But we're not going to know what you

Matthew Matosis made it Matthew Matosis I'm pretty sure this is the video That I send people when I talk about Why I don't like the new one Because like I didn't even it's one of those things where like

I was playing the HD it's not really like an HD remaster like they completely remade the game but they changed so much about it that was like very essential to the experience and when I played through it I just you know kind of got bored after two hours

didn't really think about it and then I watched this video I'm like this explains exactly why I was uninvested in a perfect way very few HD remixed that change things work. This isn't an HD remake, but Metal Gear Solid was kind of revamped into Metal Gear Solid,

the Twin Snakes for GameCube, and they added all these cutscenes and new animations. And it helps if you don't want to look at blocky PS1 textures, but it did kind of change things and kind of ruin certain elements of it. So yeah, I'll play the original.

Yeah, there's, I mean, not every HD remake is terrible, but there's so many where it's just so sad. Like the Silent Hill HD collection? I prefer them to just change nothing, but just make it HD. Yeah.

Like, that's fine. Just make it HD, but change nothing. The Halo Anniversary was actually a really good HD remake. Because you could switch back and forth between old and new graphics at the same time. They had it running on like several engines at once. And so the playability wasn't

affected at all. So even if they added new textures. They were essentially just you know, like, visual textures. Like, you couldn't bump into like new walls if they made a mountain more jagged or something or like an edge different. It would still play the exact same way as the first game

and I loved that. The Halo 2 one's good as well. And the MCC. Yeah. I wonder if they're ever going to make a Halo 3 anniversary. It's already been 10 years, isn't it? I guess so. Yeah. They missed their fucking chance.

Bro. What are they going to do with that series? What are they going to fucking do? It's fucked, man. No one's excited. I feel like it's too late. Yeah. That PC mod came out,

and everybody just started playing that, and the numbers for Halo 5 just dwindled, so everybody was just like, yeah, I want to play Halo on PC instead. It's just a got an identity crisis, you know? If your franchise just moves away from what it represents, then no one's going to stick around for the new thing.

Thanks, Michael Soft. They really screwed up Three four three I feel like trilogies are the best way to do it Just lock everything down to a trilogy And then say nope moving on to a new thing now Yeah like we'll develop a new series now I mean

Like it prequels are like Never that great are they Like for the most part talking movies Games anything like that And the same applies for like games Because it's so much like Well Gears of War 4 Well

It's just like Sort of a continuation Yeah more like Gears of Board. Yeah, it's more like, yeah, it's just so, the line between their creativity and the business side is so, like, heavily in favor of the business name recognition. Yeah, I haven't played Gears of War for, but all I'm thinking is, you know, to be fair, every single one of them is an incredibly repetitive experience.

There's a few things that break the mold of that, like, trilogy thing. Resident Evil 4 is insanely good. Oh, yeah. I thought Metal Gear Solid 4 was good too. I think the best way to do it, if you're going to go that far, just change it up entirely. Like Metroid Prime, for instance, like, you know, they completely dramatically changed everything. And so it doesn't even feel like the sequel to Super Metroid. It just feels like a whole new thing.

Well, Metroid also had the advantage of not being incredibly narrative heavy in the same way, something like Halo is, with all the cut scenes and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. We need the next one to be Halo pinball. That will revive the franchise. Abandon the first-person shooter format. We need a change.

Yeah, let's do it. I'd play it. I would just play it just because that would be awesome that it actually exists. It would probably be a mobile game if they did that. 100%. I haven't played any of the shit, so I don't know. You guys play Call of Duty? No, I don't.

Honestly, I don't. I played some of them and they're not fun. I tried. Which ones did you play? I like the tri-aric ones. I'm trying to remember the exact title. There was one that came out. What do you play it for, too?

This story or what people actually play for? Multiplayer. Exactly, right? Exactly. So I was like watching my roommate play through the campaign of, I think it was the first one that was released on the PS4. I can't remember which one that was. Was that the Kevin Spacey one?

Yeah, that one. And I was watching him play through it. That is at age 12. I'm trying to play that now. I was watching him play through it and just like, very rarely do I just sit down and watch someone play a game, but this one was just, I was fascinated. I was incredibly fascinated. Usually I have to like fuck a round.

to see the game break itself, but he was just doing it, just playing it normally. Like, he would crouch down. Like, he would lie down in prone position. And all of a sudden, like, the rain, the rain graphics would be, like, above him. Like, they would stop. Like, you could see the very bottom of where the rain was. And then, you know, there was like an area where it's like, oh, he's in a casino now. And I was like, hey, wait, look at those cards on the floor.

They're all the same card. I'm like, really? this is like the whole point of releasing something on the PS4 when it's a new thing you're supposed to be proving that there's some sort of like graphical capability here and that there's effort being put into the game like holy crap you can put fit so much more into this game you know like you're supposed to prove yourself what was that

it was really funny they don't really care about the campaign either I know they used to like the modern warfare campaigns from great world of war like there's a point where you just can't really tell a story anymore so they just focus on multiplayer and like this case, Zombs. What sucks about it is despite

focusing on multiplayer, they still manage to screw that up also. They like abandon the story in the campaign. But now it's just like, yay, micro transactions. Oh, what's this? You wanted local co-op or local

multiplayer on your Halo game, something that's been a feature for literally every other game that Halo is released. Oops, we're not going to include that. Sorry. They don't have that? Not in Halo 5.

Yeah, well, because they stopped it. Their excuse was, oh, because we wanted to run in 60 frames per second. But in reality, it was probably Microsoft said, hey, we need to sell more Xboxes because PlayStation stole the market from us because our console was so shitty. So let's make it so that if friends want to play with each other, they each need their own X-bone. That was their plan.

And now I think they regret it because the game didn't. I mean, nobody fucking plays it now. So, like, nobody's happy with it. It was literally the first Halo campaign that I just didn't even finish. I think I stopped on, like, level two. I was like, I'm not even having fun. Why am I doing this? It's the worst one by far.

Like, Jesus Christ. Holy shit, is it bad? So bad. I've never been able to get into the whole, like, online multiplayer first-person shooter games. I love that. especially if they're super realistic. I love playing the game, but I don't like the online multiplayer.

I always get so pissed off. I'll run out. I'll be like, hey, I'm here, I'm going to play. Oh, I died. It's that over and over and over and over. Right, because you're playing against real people. Real people are pain the ass, especially these call duty people

because they like fuck to play these games every year and not stop. So they're really good. And you're like, fuck. Have you seen that South? park episode where it's just the world of Warcraft players. Yeah. Yeah. And their mom like has to bring like a bowl and he shits all over her. And he's like, thanks, mom. Go away, mom.

Like tequitos, whatever he's eating. Yeah. Yeah. To me, Halo has mostly been about the campaign for me. Like I love the actual story and play through like the level design, everything about it, the playability. The first Halo game is just my favorite thing in the world. And on top of that, I love the multiplayer too. But I usually don't go for, you know, join a random lobby and play with random people. I usually don't have much fun that way. I usually try to do something like, hey, I'm going to play with friends that I know. Or if I'm, you know, sometimes I'll do a stream. I'll be like, okay, add my gamer tag and just play with people from my stream, which is usually fun. Because, you know, you get a variety of different skills levels and people and you know i just feel like it's more fun

and you get to choose what map you're doing whatever happened to that why do online games not do that anymore where it's like you it takes too well first of all they do like they give you like three options i know no no i hate the voting system i hate it so much why do you hit the voting system everyone votes which map they go yes okay remember you might be too young for this But there was a point in time in, like, original Starcraft and also Halo on PC, StarCraft. Where you could, you could, there would be a bunch of different games that were available. You'd be like, oh, it's this game type, like a huge list.

This game type is playing right now or in a lobby or whatever. And it's on this map. And here's the people, here's the settings. And then you just pick it and you're in instead of, hey, I want to do this vague game type where I'm maybe doing battle rifles and I may be doing something else. And then we all vote on a map. And it's three different maps and none of them are the ones that I wanted. But I guess you vote for one and then other people vote for something else and you don't even get the one out of the three that you'd.

Like, it's so stupid. I get that it's easier for the developers in that way. It's easy. There's less options. Especially the call of duty experience. The call of duty experience is as streamlined as possible. I want my options. I want my options.

I'm the controller. Well, options take more time. Call of Duty does not want to take up as much of your time. It worked so well. It just doesn't want to take up your time. I've seen it. I don't think it does. What do you mean?

What game have you played? I think most people could go along with just a call of duty or I don't know, any multiplayer game. Like even Team Fortress and stuff like that, do like quick match. You just get put on some random match. I'm playing the game. I don't care. Have you ever played a game where it allows you to choose what you want is what I'm asking? because I've...

Yeah, sure. It's about the same. I'm like, I'm glad I got the pick. Why do you want less options? I'm not like, God damn, and I can't pick the map I want. I'm a picky boy. Everyone picks Newtown anyway all the time. That's okay.

I want things that I like. Do you like open world games, guys? That's like my favorite genre. It depends how open. I do like the idea of like a pack. that I'm supposed to follow. I like being slightly controlled. It's a little overwhelming

when a game is like, hey, just do whatever you want. Then I'm like, God, but what do I, what's my goal? Like, I need to have like at least a bit of a goal to kind of feel like I'm invested in a storyline. Like, for instance, the latest Spider-Man, like, yeah, I can go around the whole city

and fight crime as long as I want. But I also, I like, I guess I like the, the comfort of the actual waypoint, like the main objective. I like knowing it's there whenever I need it. Well, he's something to do. Yeah. Totally critical. Even if it's just those mini games, you know, you've got to pick up a suit or you got

to make a shit like that too. I 100% of it. I got all of it. Yeah, me too. Yeah. It's a fucking team over here. Yeah. I get bored real quick in a lot of Bethesda games for that same reason.

You know? Really? Yeah. Yeah. Like Skyrim and Fall Out. I just feel unmotivated. I don't think Ralph and Adam are on the same game wavelength. No.

No. I love it. I love it. In Skyrim, you could become a fucking vampire. Oh, cool. It's awesome. You're like, I could become a werewolf. And you can.

Anything you want. Mm-hmm. Those are the kind of games I like. Yeah. Have you guys played Kingdom Come? I'm sorry, keep talking about it. I have not played that, no. No.

It's like a super realistic medieval times set in England or whatever. It's super realistic. You get a sword and you can't do anything with it. It takes like 10 hours to level it off. Do you ever get tired of that, though? It doesn't take lessons? No, because it's rewarding. You're like, okay, I have to learn the system.

I have to train with a guy on how to use a sword and a bow. I'd rather just go to like an archery class. Like a real archery class? Yeah. If I'm going to dedicate that much time to learning how to... If I'm going to dedicate that much time to learning how to play with a fake sword, I'd rather just go learn how to do it for real. That's fair.

We got one more piece of news before we talk about the film. Apparently, Guillermo del Toro is making a Pinocchio movie. For Netflix, I think. Did you know that? Okay. That's interesting. It's in a stop motion, right? I don't know.

It just got announced. The way you said it was so funny to me. It was like, who gives a shit? Well, I was just seeing if anybody. I mean, like, I'm, I'll watch things that he makes. It was just the way you sell. It was just the way you set it up. It was a very, uh, it was like, Pinocchio movie for Netflix.

Ah, that's the best impression of me I've heard so far. I can do an impersonation of you. Yeah, please. Keep gone. Okay. Let's see. I just saw Mission Impossible Fallout and it was... But I didn't say that.

Oh, shit. But a lot of people interpret... Well, maybe I did say that. I said something along that. I don't remember actually what you saw. I don't remember what you said, actually. I do watch all your videos, though, and I love the way you do. Oh, thank you.

I appreciate you. Yeah. I say a lot. I'm glad you captured that. You should write that on your tombstone, Alex. Or Adam. Adam, this is going to tell you how much I actually do enjoy your channel. I like when you're sick and you're like, at the beginning of a video, you're like,

hey, guys, I'm really sick right now. It just comes out, you know. You make like a really dramatic cough sound. It's funny. It's real. It is real. All right, we're back. Hi, buddy.

I have to apologize. I recorded my audio through my headset by accident, not my microphone. So the last 30 minutes I sounded like I was in a toilet. That's why. Oh, it's not because you live in a toilet. Well, I do live in a toilet, but usually the microphone is good at least. He actually was in a toilet. He just didn't want to.

Okay. Talking into a toilet. Excuses. So do you have any comments about Pinocchio? I liked Pinocchio as a kid. I The last Pinocchio movie that

affected me in any way was the Jonathan Taylor Thomas one and it was mostly because I was laughing my ass off. Oh yeah? So I just have no interest in Pinocchio. I really don't. Like I mean the cartoon or the Disney animation is fine.

Del Toro's insanely talented. I don't imagine he's going to approach a project and a half-asset but I mean like he did make Pacific Grimm so I don't fucking know. Yeah. It could go either way. I feel like at the very least, it'll have some cool puppetry or creature effects or something, you know?

Like, is he going to do the donkey T.F scene? Because that could be fucked up, you know? Yeah. Like, I don't know what he's going to do that. Mm-hmm. Well. Same story again. It's just he'll make it look good.

You never know. Kids will like it. Whatever. I just can't get excited for this trend of remaking all these kids. classic stories. Disney keeps doing it. Like everyone's getting hyped for this, what,

this Lion King remake? And it's like, are people actually hyped for it? Everybody? Because I'm not. Yeah, you see the tweets going out about it. No,

I think Disney just puts out like fake tweets and shit. I don't think I was actually excited. They bought their Twitter. Russian Disney box. Yeah, get to see John Oliver and the new Lion King. As has already been

thoroughly proven, it is incredibly easy for a company to get something to the front page on Reddit. So, I mean, you never really know what people are actually excited for. Right.

It's all rigged. They understand the internet is hugely influential in how the movie does. So they put out fake shit like this all the time. But they make money, though, these films, they make tons of money. Yeah, it works. I imagine there are some genuine people excited for it. Yeah, yeah. They're not all Russian bots.

Like, you know. No, no, no. There are people excited for the new Lion King. But yeah, no, you're right. You're right. There's definitely campaigns of fakeness. I follow some of it. I'm a bit of a conspiracy theorist sometimes.

Me too. Something that fascinates me is the companies that put out that fake buzz and then the people that fall for it. And it's so obvious. Like the accounts are like the person's name hyphen and then a billion numbers. And you're like, how is anyone not seeing how obvious this is? Like, it's clearly a plant. Mm-hmm. Yeah, they do.

that all the time. The state we're in. It's kind of sad. Got him. Can you just make a trailer? Adam, I want to thank you for something really quick off topic. I listened to one of the episodes, you had a cold a few weeks back. Yes. And you mentioned you were drinking Gatorade because electrolytes are good for your cold.

Oh. So I got a cold really bad like a month ago and it went away. But then just last week, I started getting another one, and I was like, fuck, no, no, I can't have this again. So I went out and I thought, Adam drank some Gatorade. I'm going to go get some Gatorade. So I got this big-ass thing of lemon-lime Gatorade, and I drank it all, and it went away. Nice. So thank you, Adam.

No problem. So it's sponsored by Gatorade. Thank you, Adam. It works extra well if you'd wash it down with some Jankham, our second sponsor. I would say just, you know, hydration is important. Zinc is good for your immune system. Garlic is really good for your immune system and vitamin C. Just all those things.

Have you ever drank apple cider vinegar? No. It's horrid. It's the worst tasting thing ever. But it will like completely destroy the mucus that's in. in your throat. Oh, weird. And it's, if I have a cold and I know I have to film a video and my voice is like,

you know, shot to shit, I will chug. You can't take more than a few gulps of it. You have to put it in water and dilute it. It's that bad. Like, you will cry and, like, snot will come out of your nose. It's that disgusting. But it will, it'll, like, let you film. Like, it'll let you record.

So if you ever have to do that, just that's like my last resort. And it works. A hundred tip. Yeah, that's awesome. See what Chris Stuckman does for you guys? Yeah, I mean, no, you don't appreciate it. You've got to listen. Grateful bastards.

I know my shit. I don't know what we're talking about. We went from Pinocchio to Apple cider. This is fine. I think we don't need to talk more about Pinocchio. We kind of need to move along here. Good. So there was a film recommended last episode by me.

me, and it's from my favorite director, and we're going to talk about it, and we're going to spoil the shit out of it. So if you haven't seen the piano teacher, original French title La Pianist, directed by Mikhail Hanukkah, or as English people call him Michael Hanakey, then go check it out, because it's a fantastic movie, and you should see it. So what did everybody think of the movie? Let's start with you, Chris. I find this movie frustrating but not in a bad way I've seen films that I think I appreciate very much

that frustrate me but it's the type of frustration that makes me want to look into the production read like endless interviews from the filmmaker and I particularly love his movies he's one of my favorite filmmakers as well cash or cachet whatever it is cash right

that's one of my favorite films that was the first film of his that I ever saw and it floored me it absolutely floored me I thought it was genius and I've watched it multiple times since and every time I do I pick up on something and so I knew going in this was not going to be like you know a movie that I would eat popcorn well it wasn't going to be an easy grab no this I was prepared going in for that but this is one of his that I had not seen. And the more I think about it, the more I really do appreciate it. There's a few things I thought could have been better. But I'll let other people talk.

What about you, boys? Well, it was interesting. You said it's not a popcorn movie because I happen to be eating ice cream during the scene where it's pretty normal for the first 20, 30 minutes. You know, it's just about a sort of repressed, uptight piano teacher, just doing a thing. And then suddenly there's that scene in the like, porno shop. And that's when I was luncheon on my ice cream. And she puts her hand down and grabs that tissue and starts sniffing it.

And I nearly vomited. Oh, really? That stuff was coming. Like, it really goes there. It's very French and explicit in that way. But overall, I thought it was brilliant. I absolutely loved it. Yeah, it was pretty, pretty great.

Michael Hanigke's made a lot of great movies. I don't know if this is like one of his best ones for me anyway, but like he, whenever you watch one of his movies, you get the sense that he doesn't make something unless he really has something to say. And he really, every movie feels like a, like a perfectly made masterpiece, you know? So, I don't, you guys talk. I don't know, you guys kind of said everything I wanted to say. it's fucking great what i liked about it um and kind of what i started to pick up towards the end was it seemed like he was exploring the boundary between femininity and masculinity and particularly through

uh erika the lead because she has both like she she seems like at times she wants to be in the dominant position in this relationship that develops and then other times she wants to be submissive. And it's almost like she can't make up her mind. And the film kind of denies you the reactions that you expect from people. Like there's scenes that cut right at like an integral moment

and it kind of follows that role of come into a scene late and leave early. When she comes home really late that one night and her mom slaps her, she's like, your father died this afternoon, and it just cuts. You have no idea what her reaction is. You never hear about it again. And it's almost like it's aggressively against all mainstream ways of telling a story

in that it wants the audience to be almost like the voyeurs and forces you to make up your own interpretation of everything, which is what he does in all of his films. Yeah. He forces you to think. I also think that, you know, in terms of its presentation, this director, like, part of the reason why I love him so much is he's able to show a lot with a little. And, you know, even if that's not necessarily mentioned again, you know, everything we sort of see affecting this character shows up in how she reacts and how she falls apart. And all these. incredible subtleties in in her performance why am i blanking on her name she's an amazing actress what is her name isabel isabel huper isabel huper yeah yeah she's insanely good in the movie

this is one of the best performances of the decade at least honestly oh yeah she's insane she's fantastic fearless really i mean fearless actress there's she does shit in this movie that like most actors, they'd read the script and not even, not even try, but I mean, like, there's like a three or four minute unbroken rape scene with like, without a, without a cut. And just the fact that that both of those actors really are able to go to that place. And actually, do you think that, that there's two different ways that I looked at that scene, you know, it felt very violating for her, but partially, partially for him. as well, which is definitely the more unpopular way to look at the scene.

Obviously, most people will view that scene and view it as a rape scene, and that technically is what's happening. But he's also there attempting to do everything that was on her list. Yeah, in a way for sure. And so I'm curious, like, are they both sort of victims in that scene? It could be interpreted in that way, but I feel like at that point in the film, I mean, like he he definitely raped her but at the same time it's like okay it's it's it's unclear i think the intent is that she's not being gratified in any way from this that it is not like what she was expecting from her quest she she clarifies to him that um she waited for him right

and he was her first right or something along those lines so to me it seemed like like one of those kind of fantastical fetishes that you might imagine as being like, yeah, that's what I like. But then in reality, it might be a different story. So that's what that scene kind of was to me. It could be, but there's a few lines in that scene that confused me if that was the intent. Because on first viewing, it absolutely seems very one-sided. But there's a part where he hits her and she says, not on my face or my hands.

And it's sort of like she's almost inviting him to do it just not on her face or her hands. And so it's absolutely a horrific scene. And I would definitely classify it obviously as an attack. It's just that I'm very curious as to, because this is the thing about his films is that he kind of leaves it open ended. And even like when he sees her at the music hall in the final scene, he just says like, looking forward to hearing you play and he's smiling like expecting her to just accept whatever just occurred and he even you know throws her mom into a room expecting no repercussions of any kind and so I was trying to figure it's a very complex moment and it's probably the most

frustrating scene in the film for me because not even the ending I fucking love the ending actually it was just that moment where I was like okay I couldn't quite tell like are they performing a scene together like when she says please stop? Is she, is that part of her fantasy or is this just a horrific thing that I'm watching? I don't know if you're supposed to know is the thing. Yeah. I think all of us are going to have different answers. Well, here's a question. Do you think she's ever done this before? No. No. No. Exactly. That's what I think. I always took it as her mother kept her on a leash her whole life and made her a piano teacher and she's like like the rest of the students in the movie. They all have a

mother who fucking forces them to play piano all the time. And that's basically what she is, she's like a 40-year-old woman. And she always had these repressed, like, sexual urges because she's never really gotten a chance to leave her home and explore the world. And that's why I think it's so fucked up, like her sexual fantasy. That's how I took it. I've actually taken the opportunity to go through all of the featureettes on Criterion, and I looked through a bunch of interviews and, you know,

really explored what the interpretations were from the director and from the lead actress. And what seems to be the case is that these, so the young girl that she winds up mutilating her hand is essentially a character that Hanukkah wrote in that wasn't in the original book. This is the only film of his that was based off of a novel. And apparently the novel, you know, really explored the entire relationship and upbringing and childhood of this character. But he decided, you know, we don't have all the time to do that in a film. It would be too difficult or too convoluted to try and express. So instead, he just wrote in another character to sort of act as this metaphorical representation of her.

So you're supposed to kind of imagine that this young girl who, whose mother is constantly pressuring her into being the best and doing all the, you know, going to all these recitals. And, you know, when she doesn't get accepted, she confronts the teacher sort of thing. We're supposed to imagine that at one point, Erica, that's her main character's name, right? Erica? Yeah, we're supposed to imagine that Erica was once in that position when she was younger. And one of the telling lines, I guess, in that sense is when the girl's mother is talking to her after her hand gets fucked up

and she's saying we sacrificed everything and Erica says no she sacrificed everything and she's in a way trying to you know like empathize with this young girl and one of the more interesting kind of interpretations that I heard was on a commentary in one of the scenes from Isabel Huber

and she was saying that despite the glass breaking and you know, putting it in her coat pocket. Despite that being somewhat out of a fit of rage, she had just seen the young girl playfully interacting with the person she loves and she, you know, this fit of rage manifested in her head because she's so emotionally weak and these things just come out. Despite that, in a way, supposedly she was also trying to save her from her own life. and that by ruining her career

she wouldn't grow up to be this second-rate pianist whose only claim to fame was through playing at some bourgeoisie kind of piano recitals. You know, because like the, as the film expresses, the young girl wasn't exactly the, this cream of the crop pianist that would grow up to do great things. You know, the main character knew that.

Yeah. And so in a way, she was like a child. was kind of, you know, saving her from this path that she is on herself at the age of 40. And so it's kind of an interesting way to look at that scene. Yeah. Yeah, you could also see it as just, you know, she was pissed that the guy was focusing on her. Like there's several layers to it. The main character.

There's so many different ways to look at everything. Yeah, exactly. That's what makes his movies fucking great. Is that there's layers to everything. Like an onion. Seeing the facial expression of the character or even the shot behind the character as she's You know looking around and she finds the glass like every every moment of the film you can see kind of like a the the gears turning in her head and it's unclear Exactly what she's thinking, but there's so much to get from that and there's so many ways that you can can view it and that's why I love it so much

Yeah, you find your own meaning out of it I didn't expect that I that scene when she broke the glass, I thought she was going to cut herself again. I thought she was going to find a bathroom and, you know, cut herself again. I did not expect her to do that. But you really just kind of sold me on that moment because it was very confusing to me at first, but that's a great, great way to look at it. Yeah, I have to give credit to Isabelle for that one. Because, yeah, that was something that I kind of came to realize after just watching through

all the featureettes on the criterion. Okay. Blue Ray. Even the music choices, I thought, were particularly perfect, really, because they would go from, like, all the, all the pieces, they would go from these kind of subtle beginnings and then have these really loud bombastic parts, and then these very restrained parts, and these very loud part. And it kind of reflected Erica and her character, because there was really no through line, really.

And sometimes that's a bad thing, but this is the purpose of this character. Is she's supposed to be erratic? You know, she's supposed to go from wanting to be loved and then repulsed by love. And in the scenes that she was repulsed, it was the sexual scenes where she was repulsed, it was usually when some sort of like conventional romantic passion was involved. Like she threw up when they were in the, you know, the back locker room, even though it was kind of her, even though she kind of initiated that,

that bit, it was almost like she was trying to be someone she wasn't for him for a moment, and then she just couldn't do it. It was just too much for it. That was a, that scene was a seven minute long sequence shot, by the way.

It's difficult to pick up on, but it's like it's literally all in one take for that. There's so much technical work going on in the film that like you don't even, notice like there's so many cool tricks that he's doing like you you see the characters the entire time but at some point she's got to like drink the fake vomit and and like even in the scene where she's like cutting herself in the bathtub apparently there was like a stage hand that you can't even see like

giving her a blood tube and then like sneaking it away but you can't see shit like I even knowing that and watching the scene again no I'm like I still don't even understand how he did that because there was no there was no like digital effect work there it was literally just all this magic trick that this this crazy perfectionist director is is showing us and i i love that i love his style because it's so like it's not show off you matter of fact it's very precise and perfect you matter of fact i like the use of what you said the use of music is great i love that the movie doesn't actually score he he never does that does a lot also that's what's

one of his restrictions. No, because he thinks it's like manipulatives. Yeah, I read an interview with him where he said that he feels that musical scores essentially are only used to cover up flaws in a film. Yeah, I've got the quote right here if you're interested. I wrote that down. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, I don't necessarily agree, but...

In an interview with The Guardian, he says, The Choice of Music was one of the most enjoyable parts of making the film, but I have too much respect for music to simply throw it in my films, which is why music rarely comes up in them. Usually music is used to hide a film's problems. Here music becomes a part of the film itself. And speaking personally, if I'm going to make a movie, I'm going to put music in it. And also, you know, like on top of that, I write music.

So, you know, I would love, I would, that's an aspect of the film that I would love. But I do agree with him for sure that music is essentially just used as a bandaid in so many situations. Not to say that no films should have music in them, but far too often do we see a film score being used to try and imply an emotion that is perhaps not even really being expressed by the film itself, where it just feels manipulative. You don't even know what you're supposed to be feeling sometimes. And so the movie needs to explain. So much manipulative music of music and especially big budget Hollywood films. But films everywhere do that. And I agree with him completely.

And I just feel like that's an incredibly respectful and intelligent restriction to set for one's own work. And I love that he does that. I think it's really cool. I just wanted to mention his use of wide shots, too. Because something I love that he does is he will just hold the camera on a large group of people and just show you them. And you get, if you want to see this character's reaction, you can look at him. and then you can look over to the mother. I love that about him.

He doesn't feel the need to just show, oh, close up on her, close up on her, close up on this and this. Like, you're smart. You can just show a frame and fucking figure out what you want to see and what you want to get out of it. I love that about him. And part of that is there's no such thing as a goofy extra in one of his films. Like every single person that's in frame,

they feel like a real person. Like he's very clear. very clearly spends time with each of these actors and makes sure that they have something to do and that they're doing it properly and that they look natural and realistic. You know, like that shot in Amor where it's literally you see the entire packed theater, zoom in on any one of those people. They're all doing a good performance. There's no such thing as a goofy looking extra in one of his films. He's such a perfectionist. Yeah, the extras in most movies are just like, you get to.

two people and they stand in the background. Yeah. They're holding champagne. And that's it. That's the like people were like walking around. Pretending to sweep the road. And then they walked to a group and they talk to the group and walk away. Yeah. But like everyone in this was, like you said Adam, it feels like a real fucking person just walking around and doing their own business. I think the film works because it's anchored around this character study of this just fucked up. It's just so messed up like the whole story of it.

that's what makes it fascinating. Like I said at the beginning, she starts off as this, you know, almost, I don't want to say by the books, because it's not that by the book, but we've seen characters like that before, the uptight,

you know, kind of woman like that, the teacher role, that kind of thing. But as it continues, as you learn more about her, and it gets more and more fucked up, it just becomes more and more interesting.

And it's not just the performance, it's the way everything, every single element of it is so deliberately. so well thought out. The editing, the camera work, everything around it feeds into this central character and the way she feels and how conflicted she is and how one thing I really loved about her performance were not just the moments of weakness where she breaks down, like in that horrible scene where she just snaps and makes out with her mother on the bed.

I thought that was one of the most disturbing scenes in the whole film, but the moments of quiet where just subtle little things in her body language, though, I want to say a relatively rare on this kind of depth of performance, because, like, you just notice little things. Like, she's just shoving in these little quirks and details. That it's just, she just took it to another level. Like, she truly did just become this character. And it just, it makes it.

so unique and without her I feel like that she just anchors the whole film that makes it so special and Hanukkah actually agrees because he literally said he would not make this film without Isabelle Hubert so yeah he must have known

he considers her like the best European actor actress yeah they clearly trust each other they have a great work relationship this was supposed to be his first movie he wanted to direct this it was supposed to be his first feature film. He wasn't able to secure funding or something.

It fell apart. And then somebody else took the project and was like, hey, can you write the script? And by that point, Hanukkah had already, you know, proven himself in the international kind of indie can kind of stage. And so he wrote the script for them. And then something else fell through, like the funding, I guess. And then eventually it's like, oh, why don't you direct it? Oh, well, okay, but I'm not going to do it unless I get this actress. And the rest is history.

And they did. Oh, yeah. Let's point out the rest of the acting's great, too. I think her mother was great. What's the name of the guy? Yeah, everybody's fucking fantastic. The male lead. He reminded me of Draco Malfoy from Harry Potter.

Oh, that's funny. He did for me too. No, he was great, though. I really did think everybody was incredible. In the first scene where he plays piano with a recital, and she's hearing it for the first time, it is the closest maybe, in retrospect, that we get to seeing some genuine emotion from her.

Like, I remember her eyebrow just kind of twitched and raised ever so slightly, and she would get, like, her eyes got glassy, you know, and I was like, Jesus Christ, like, I mean, her performance throughout the film, I read some reviews. You know, I sometimes look up reviews after I see the movie and this one critic called her performance One Note. And I was blown away by how any professional could look at this movie and not respect this work. You know, it's just there are, there's a few things about it that frustrated me. But overall, I mean, it's like I would clearly recommend that anybody interested in filmmaking, watch this, or if you, especially acting, because you can learn so much just from, just from the

restraint, you know, that's being displayed, not just from the actors, but from the director, because there's sequences that he just lets stay, as you already said, he lets stay in one unbroken take for so long. There's a few times where I felt like it could have been, they could have cut away or done things a little faster, but that's just, you know, minor and little editing things. Like when she's going down into the coat room to look for something that she can break and she kind of sits like on, I don't know what she's sitting on, but she sits in frame for like a good 30 seconds and just kind of looks around. I love it. I was like, okay. I was like, get moving.

No, I was like, get moving. Find something. You know, like what are we being told here? You know, like sometimes I like that. But I feel like every minute in a movie is time that you're dedicating out of your life to watch it. And if you're not telling the audience something in that moment, it's a wasted moment. And so, like, I love that scene, but it's just a little bit too long. Just a little moments like that that just go too long.

But that's really it. I understand that. Besides that, I love the movie. But I would disagree that it's not telling us anything, you know? Like, we, we get to see the cogs turning in her head. We get to see, you know, her posture. Like, there's so, even, even just the shot from, you don't even see her face, but there's so much, there's so much presence there. You know, you can see.

everything in the performance that that she's going through. Like she has such a thorough understanding of this character. And even when you can't see her face, it's like the performance is still outstanding somehow. I'm grasping at straws here.

You know, like I'm looking for things to be nitpick about because I don't want to just say like, oh, it's perfect. I love everything about it. Like there's little things that bug me while I watched it. But like, there's a lot of little things that bug me.

Oh, yeah. Some of the ADR didn't look good Did you guys notice that? Yeah, I had that note down. I was like, what the fuck? It's weird seeing like a Michael Hanneke movie and something like that happens, you know? Because I expect like perfection from it.

I looked up why that was. He actually talks about it on the special features for the Criterion Blu-ray. Because the movie was shot in Austria. Okay. And he is so insistent on which actors are going to play which roles. And so the,

just a couple of the characters for a couple of the shots were actually reading their lines in another language because they didn't speak French, like, because they're Austrian-German actors. And I just, I find that a really goofy kind of reasoning for that. I'm like, it's one of those things where it's just, I'm like, yeah, really?

But at the same time, it's like, okay, you're a picky man I get it and he expressed even in the featurette he's like yeah it wasn't always perfect and I wasn't happy with it but I needed this actor to play this character sort of thing so the reason why

some of it looks weird is because it's literally not even the same dialogue yeah yeah the lip movements don't yeah language yeah yeah yeah it looked like like a Godzilla movie or something there's a couple of those guys where you're like that happens and it is a very odd choice but I'm assuming he's learned from it in some way I've never seen anything like that in any of his films after that point so but either way I mean

no oh yeah it's definitely crazy yeah it's like it's like it's like I can watch someone of his caliber you know the good the bad me ugly which was you know insanely dubbed but I but I still I still love it like yeah but they also had no sound equipment back to To film in the fucking desert. Also, like, if you don't speak French, you're just, you're reading subtitles, and sometimes I didn't notice that the dubbing was a problem because I was reading, you know, but like, then I would look up and be like, their mouths aren't, yeah, so it was just, that is a very odd choice, especially for someone who's such a perfectionist.

It's so strange. But, you know, if he was going to make that choice, I guess that's the best it could go. Yeah. I mean, that's the worst thing about the movie. Like I said, like, we're grasping and straws. Like the rest of it's excellent. And it's really insignificant towards the overall film. I love the depth in this character.

I love how she explores the character. And even in that, you were saying that, you know, the first time we see this emotion from her is when she's listening to the male lead at the doing his audition for her class. And the way she describes the scene. is, you know, something that I feel is very interesting. She's saying that, you know, she's falling in love with him, but at the same time, she's, she's annoyed that she's falling in love. She's curious, she's apprehensive about his intentions. And basically, a kind of thorough way to understand her character

or give more context to her character and the decisions she makes throughout the film is that she's someone that, has longed for true love her entire life to such an extent and been so repressed, especially by her mother, that she places this kind of unattainable idea in her head of what true love is. And, you know, she has all of her weird masochistic fetishes and, and all of these crazy things about her that are just an extension of her own. repression, but at the same time, what she's apprehensive about in this character and the reason why she tries to shove him away at first and doesn't trust him is because her assumption about him is that he's someone who's only interested in seduction, but she doesn't consider that to be true love. And so that's part of why she initially decides to change the rules and tries to be

more dominant because she doesn't want him to seduce her. He doesn't want him to be able to be seductive and be this, you know, like, oh yeah, I'm only in it to just seduce you. Like she wants the true love aspect out of him. And that winds up manifesting and her giving him this note and just being like, this is everything about me. There's no secrets. This is everything about who I am. And what she's really trying to get out of that is is true love, which is bizarre to think about in a way that this is how this is manifested in this character, but that seems to be, you know, from the best that I can gather,

the intentions of what the character is supposed to be. She's weirdly childlike. Oh, yeah. She's so fragile. Yeah, that's kind of what makes it so disturbing. Yeah, she's so disturbed. Well, because she's very, like, a logical, you know, straight and narrow kind of person,

but, like, in terms of relationships and sexual stuff, You get a sense that she never really, you know, did it all that much in our life. So in that level, she is very childlike. That's what made that last scene so, like, scary. She was helpless. Like, she didn't even know what she signed up for. She was writing all this shit down. And she really didn't even understand, I think, the implications of it, you know?

Yeah, it reminded me of, like, a kid excited to show a friend all of their toys. Like, like, she goes, she's like, here's my box of stuff. Everything. It's all here. You don't need to do anything. Here, what kind of clothes you want me to wear? I'll wear whatever you want. And you're right. Very childlike. One of my favorite lines in the film that I feel describes a lot about this character is when she says, I have no feelings. Get that into your head. And if I ever do, they won't win out over my intelligence. Like that says everything you need to know about this character.

And just that one line is like she puts up this. entire persona, her entire life, as many people do. You know, we see this quite often play out in real life. People that are so repressed and insecure, especially about their own sexuality, is that it winds up consuming them and expressing itself in, you know, harmful ways or becoming so extreme. Like, we see that, you know, every once in a while, there will be a new story about, like, Mr. Family Values Christian was fucking lady. boys at a truck stop, you know, like, it's, it's one of those things where it's like, you can just

imagine that this type of person exists in real life. And especially in the way that it's presented, like, there's so many people where it's like, you would never imagine the kind of things that they're into or the kind of struggles that they're dealing with at home. You know, we only get a glimpse of everyone's life at any given moment and you know relating that back to Synecdochee, New York, I guess. We only see a window into

people's lives and we don't really see the whole thing. And so you don't really know what any person is experiencing or how they were brought up or what their upbringing was and what has transformed them into this person or who they really are at any

given moment. And I love that this film really explores that. I love that it doesn't glamorize it you know it doesn't it's not like exploitative or anything it doesn't I was that about that yeah it's it's it's a very genuine but still disturbing and still in some ways graphic but yeah very very tasteful and a very tasteful honest and accurate portrayal of of sexuality even if it's something totally bizarre and totally unconventional and you know in many ways harmful It is the antithesis to 50 Shades of Gray. Oh, yeah.

That's a good way to put it, I guess. You know, you look at 50 Shades of Grey and how popular that was with people and, you know, the books sold all these copies. There's a trilogy of shit movies. And it's like you just want to tell the people who like it. You're like, hey, watch the piano teacher. That's what it's really like. None of this, like, glamorized MTV pop song bullshit. Like that's, it's, it's presented as, it's, it's not like the film is, um, vindicating her, nor is it

necessarily condoning her. And it's not saying it's, it's, you know, awful. It's basically just observing. It's just observing these moments and asking us to say or feel what we feel about it. Like we can, we can condemn her. We can feel sympathy for her. and there is, and that's, you know, something I love about his movies, is that he just basically, a lot of his films are very voyeuristic, especially Cash or Cache or whatever, especially that film, which is very much so about voyeurism. And he just wants you to look at something and have a reaction to it. And he seems very pleased when he experiences the reactions.

It's really impossible to just brush her off as like, oh, she's a pervert or, oh, she's a bad person. because there's so much depth to her character and especially the glimpses that we get of her life at home and her relationship with her mother and every single snippet that we get where she's doing something that's not in her professional life and you learn so much more about this person

and you learn about how fragile and wounded they are. Well, as far as the mother was concerned, she was still a kid. I love the scene where her and the boyfriend go into the apartment and they go to her room and the mother's like what is he doing here it's the middle of night it's like a bunch of fucking teenagers like teenagers do that when an adult has a relationship they like go in and they have dinner with the mother or whatever she's in her 40s and they're still doing this like juvenile nonsense oh open the door you know

what are you guys doing in there it's just fucking 40 year old woman what are you asking her for it's not your business very probably one of the best character studies I've ever seen, honestly. I'm curious how you guys interpret the ending. Yeah. Well, she ran away from her life. She realized how fucked up it made her, and she's like, I'm out of here. That's how I took it.

Well, I'm confused about the act of publicly cutting. This is the first time she's ever done that in a place where she could be seen. and she chose to do it clearly in advance or she might have had a different plan you know like she's waiting in the shadows she's got the purse we saw her put the knife in there way before she ever left so she's got a plan and then she sees him

and then she starts walking to him and she's walking with conviction almost like she's going to do something like I was pretty sure she was going to slit his throat or something. And then someone comes up to her and sort of breaks her out of that and speaks to her a little bit and allows him to enter the music call. And then she's like, fuck it. And she does it to herself and leaves. So I'm curious, like we've already said, we basically just see the wheels turning in her head.

We don't necessarily know exactly what she's planning. We just kind of get little inklings of what she might be planning. And I feel like she went there to kill him and then decided I hate him so much. I'm cutting myself. And like you guys said, walked away from her life. But it's just very fascinating to me that a film that honestly did frustrate me while watching it, like just as I've continued to think about it, I was like, I really do appreciate it. And I started to like it a lot more. There are films like this where they do frustrate me, but it's a good frustration.

Like, I watched your review of Halloween, Adam, and I felt similar about it. It was a very, very, very frustrating movie that I did not like. And that was a different type of frustration. That was like a movie where I saw all the things they should have done, but they didn't do it, and it pissed me off. This movie frustrated me, but it was like it was supposed to. You know, like it's supposed to get onto your skin. supposed to show you things that you don't like looking at. And I don't know.

I really love that about the movie. Yeah, that's a very Hanukkah kind of staple is he wants art to be challenging in some way. He wants to have people experience something that makes them think about it or gives them a real experience. Which is funny because he seems so lighthearted in interviews. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He just seems so like

A friendly man Nice old man Yeah And then you watch his movies And I'm like Dude you're fucked up Yeah But he's always got a point

That's what makes like the fucked up stuff worth it Yeah Like I feel like a Lars von Trier Or something like that He just does shit to disturb the audience or whatever Yeah I completely agree I completely agree

I mean this movie is almost like a cautionary tale Like don't chase this life Of you know Don't live with your mother or whatever Are you gonna be this miserable person he does it for a reason it's not just miserable you know

or at least sleep in a different fucking bed yeah yeah for God's sakes sleep in a different bed yeah the um I feel like the ending like it's it's something that

um I guess we can never really fully understand what her initial intentions were um from the way that Isabelle Hupert describes it she she's essentially saying as though, you know, she at least had the intentions of confronting him once she saw him.

And at that moment, and again, this is from the perspective of the actor, this isn't my original interpretation, at that moment, she sees him with, you know, these like two bimboes and the way he's so, you know, cold and dismissive and cocky kind of real. affirms her initial concerns, her initial assumptions about him, like, yes, this is just some asshole who was only interested in seducing me and, you know, not interested in real love. And at that moment, he kind of, you know, just with a glance, basically just breaks up with her. And it's unclear what what her intentions were grabbing the knife at the beginning. But in that moment, you know, and she has this really powerful grimace on her face. I love that she reacts to it before she stabs the knife in. Like that's so beautiful and so well done.

And obviously they filmed a lot of takes for that. She actually stabbed a blood bag. She was wearing a chain mail shirt underneath. So that wasn't like that wasn't CG or anything. That was like she just stabbed herself in a blood bag, which is really cool. And in that sense, it was I guess supposed to be interpreted as a suicide attempt. and even through that, she manages to fail. And in that moment after stabbing herself,

she is, you know, she walks out and she's left in a much worse place than where she started in the film, which I just find really interesting. Well, I love movies that do that. I love movies that don't have a happy ending. You like those depressing. You like depressing shit, Adam. You do. I know you do, man.

the last movie what was the last we watched mommy that movie was fucking depressing man like you you love that shit you eat it up what's that miserable movie you want us to watch you said it was like the saddest movie ever dear zachary dear zachary yeah you keep talking to dear zachary you got to see dear zachary you guys he might recommend it at some point oh god i don't want to be fucking depressed though it's funny my wife i was like what movie are you watching and i was like uh it's the piano teacher and she was like i want me to watch it with you and i was like trust you me don't like I knew for a fact like that just because I knew because you recommended I was like it's gonna make her make her depressed today and I was like just don't do it just go go read go read upstairs and can you recommend like a wolf furrow movie one day yeah kicking and screaming or semi-pro or something like that stepbriders yeah yeah stepbrothers yeah stepbrothers boo zoolander oh zoolander that's Ben Stiller. Yeah, but he is in it.

Oh, he is? Oh, yeah, he's the bad guy, right? He's a mugatu. That was one of his better characters. Will Ferrell, really funny. Will Ferrell's in the Lego movie. Spoilers. He is.

That's true. He's good in Lego movie. He's good in some things. I fucking love the first Zoolander. I do not care. Yeah, I love that movie. This is something that I guess we haven't mentioned yet, but they were actually playing the piano in this film.

Like, the, the, The male lead had never played piano before. He had no lessons of any kind. And he actually learned those parts. And outside of filming, so on top of the hours he was already filming during the shoot, he was practicing an additional four hours a day. And they just moved to the actual play,

the scenes where he was playing to like the end of the shoot so he could practice enough to get to that point. Whereas Isabel, she practiced piano for, a good amount of time when she was a kid, didn't touch it for a while, and then started back up again just for this film. And there's very subtle kind of things you can notice, like, okay, she's not a real piano teacher because of the way she holds her pinky sort of thing. But as for the notation and, you know, just the presence of seeing the entire actor's body as they're playing the piece instead of just like, oh, cut to a hand double sort of thing. Like that's just so cool And you rarely see movies do that

I love I love how real It feels Yeah Yeah they did the same thing like in Ray Where they were Jamie Fox You know he would play piano He played piano really well And they would pan from his hands to his face

And I always hate in movies Where you can tell that it's clearly A hand double And I love that about the film is that And you know like I don't know About the pinky thing like that Didn't distract me Like I don't know anything like that

I just thought she was doing amazing Most people wouldn't notice I know You'd have to be basically that character to understand. Or, like, you know, someone in that field. Yeah. It's, yeah, I'm not going to go into the details, but anybody who's, like, taken piano, you know, piano lessons,

that's, like, one of the first things you learn. Well, you can totally tell. Like, even if you don't, if you aren't some musician, you can tell that, like, okay, they're actually playing the piano. That's not, like, some fucking, she's just tapping our hands around or whatever. It looks real. It looks real. I really loved the envixtal.

of tension with all these students and like the competitive nature and you know like there's a scene that literally just opens up with a girl crying after she auditioned and like snot running down her nose it reminded me of black swan in a way which obviously came much later but yeah i love showcasing that kind of like competitive stressful environment i feel like it adds a lot to the film it adds a lot of tension yeah i felt genuinely sorry for the the young girl who gets her hand mangled. It felt really bad for her. And just like, I don't know if it's because I've, I've never taken piano lessons, but I, when I was a kid, I was involved in, like, a lot of, like, community stuff like that. And it was always, like, a lot of pressure. Like, you have to do this, you have to do that. And you always have to deliver.

And it's, like, your family's giving you pressure. Your friends are giving you pressure. teachers are giving you pressure. And I kind of related to her quite a bit. And, you know, like, she got sick before performance. And then all she did was basically wink at that guy. And she mangled her hand. And like you said, you know, it could be interpreted as a way of saving her from the

potential of a bad life. But I don't know. That's a bit of a stretch for me. Like, I think she got mad. Oh, of course. I think there was more than one reason for it. Yeah. I felt bad for. Yeah. Of course.

I guess we'll end this discussion pretty soon. One other thing I would love to point out, we kind of touched this a bit, but I love how cold she was to a lot of people in the film. I love how when she's at the newsstand and she sees one of her pupils looking at the porno mags, and she just like, she just fucking alpha intimidates him like, oh, hello. And then like the next day at the recital he's clearly just so distracted he can't even pay attention and play the right notes because he's it's so awkward and she's threatening to tell his mother about it like and by this point we already know she has her own like skeletons in her closet, you know, like she. Yeah. She does the same thing, but she's just totally projecting herself onto him and being a massive fucking hypocrite. But this is a person that, you know, is dealing with so much internal conflict.

and this is just how it manifests and I just I find that so honest and realistic I love it yeah there was one thing about the film that like you said he goes for realism there's only there's one scene

in the movie that I thought was distracting because of his realism and it's it's like the most simple thing to change but when she goes to that drive-in theater there were posters for frequency the patron and the skulls.

And they were like really visible. Yeah. And I was just like the skulls. Like it's the most, it's like this crappy MTV generation over a movie. And it just, it took me out of the movie instantly. I couldn't help it. I couldn't help it that notice. But I mean, you know, they were probably there.

And he just thought we'll leave him up because they're there. Yeah. Yeah, who knows? I don't know. I haven't watched any of those movies. Do you think he put those posters there? No, I don't because those were. I think he did.

Movies that were out when the film was shooting. Oh, yeah? Yeah. I just always take him as a guy who like, you know, everything in the film is purposeful. I think all three of those movies were 2000 movies. Hmm.

Okay. I remember one scene. I forgot exactly what it was, but like everyone had black clothing on. Like, there were like a hundred extras and they all had black clothing on, which made me go like, okay, so he clearly intended this,

which makes me go, all right, so everything in this movie visually has some meaning to it. I think if he wanted to put the posters there, then the movie that was playing would have been one of those films, but it was clearly a different film than like it wasn't the Patriot with Mel Gibson.

Like it wasn't the... No. It was like some fucking black and white movie. Yeah. They were probably just there. Which is cool. Yeah. But it just kind of took me out of the movie. All right. All right. So, uh, what do you guys think of this movie overall? What would you give it out of ten? I'll wait.

I could have asked for one of the first. I would have asked for one of the movie. directly. Hey guys. I didn't want to interrupt anybody. I love it when that happens. Yeah. Fuck it, I'll go. Okay, I'll go.

Like a piece of music, like the music in the film. It's very layered, technical, thoughtful. Every element of it is masterful in the way it's structured. I loved all the techniques

they used, the acting. Only tiny little nitpicks, like the one thing that kind of bug me was why that horrific sort of rape scene at the end why the mother didn't call any authorities or something to me that was quite strange to me that was kind of it though that was the only moment that pulled me out of it um I do have to say um this film's a real pain in the ass to get in the UK um I feel like I'm always saying this but the only version I could find

was um a standard definition like rental um so I had to watch it in like this crappy like reduced thing on my 4k TV. I watched it on Amazon Prime. Do you, um... Me too. Oh really? Do you not have that? I, I had to buy it off Amazon, um, but it was maximum, you know, standard definition.

Um, I'd have to get a US import to even watch the Blu-ray, so. So I mean, like, you can't even access like the streaming. My, what's on the UK Amazon Prime is a different selection. Yeah. It's just like Netflix. Like, if it's on yours, it's not necessarily. Yeah, you're right. You're right.

but sorry. Yeah, I mean, it's an amazing character study. As Adam said earlier, probably one of the best I've ever seen. You don't see performances like this very often, this nuance, this many layers to it. I'd give it a four and a half or five stars. I think it's brilliant. It's not my favorite movie of his, but it is a very difficult film, as I said already, frustrating, but not in a way that that bothered me. It was intriguing, actually, how difficult I found

the movie, and it made me want to look into the production. It made me want to read about it. It made me want to look up interviews. And like you did, Adam, watch, you know, documentaries and featureettes and stuff. I think that, you know, I mentioned a couple of my nitpicks. I agree. She should have called somebody. Like, if I was the mother, I would have been busting down the door, you know and she kind of just gave up and didn't even say anything for like five straight minutes and I'm like your daughter's being raped like why aren't you doing anything um but besides that um just minor stuff like uh I didn't 100% buy the incestual scene I don't know if it's just because she's aroused by things that are considered taboo or because she is just that fucked in the head

but I feel like just saying that she's crazy is sort of an easy way out. So that was one of the more frustrating scenes. But performances, direction, like you said, Ralph, lack of musical score, really impressive. And the pieces that he chose just elevated everything considerably. I give it a nay. Nice. Everything you guys said, great movie. I want to see it again

until I like rated a five out of five and I don't think it's as good as his other stuff that you've seen some of it but it's still great yeah that I've seen like white ribbon and fucking cachet or like god level and this is like really really really really good

so like four out of five or eight out of ten nine out of ten I'll say yep I love the film obviously I've said everything I want to say about it I will kind of I guess respond with my own interpretation of of, I guess, the issues that you guys just mentioned.

Like, we, we don't, we, we, we didn't really see if they had any kind of conversation after the assault of, you know, perhaps the main character telling her mother not to contact the authorities or perhaps the mother knowing, you know, that she had this recital in the morning the next day that could have played into her, uh, her motivations there. But I, I guess, you know, that was kind of unclear. And as for, you know, the scene where she assaults her mother on the bed, that was literally, like, fresh after she got rejected by her love interest and that fell through. And I guess the intention there is, you know, it's kind of supposed to be like she's, she's just driven to this desperation and becomes this kind of animal, you know, when she's so desperate for love that she just, you know, tries to get it out of whatever's, right next to her, you know, and she's so incredibly emotionally frustrated and, you know, all that. So I, you know, I don't think it was just like she was crazy. There's, there's layers to it. And for sure, a normal person wouldn't do that. But, uh, this is a very complicated, very troubled character. And it was, you know, that was a scene that was in the novel as well. Hanukkah is like, yeah, I didn't write that. Um, but, you know, obviously he had his had added his own flare to it. I love this movie. Definitely one of my favorite character studies ever. One of my favorite Hanukkah films.

I'm giving it 10 out of 10. I love it very much. And I guess it's time for questions. And since Ralph, you have to leave soon, you can decide which one the last question is. Okay, cool. Thank you. Alex got picked out. I have plenty of questions that were submitted over on the Sardonic.

cast Reddit, Ralph normally leaves a nice thread at the top where you can leave your own questions that we might answer if they're any good. Our first one for this episode comes from Bouncy Ball Studios who says, how long do you think you can go without watching a movie slash TV show or playing a video game? Wow. How long could you do it? Maybe like a week. Shit. I mean, I watch at least a movie. I watch a movie a day. God.

Depends what I'm being offered. If it's like a competition or some shit, I don't know. But then it's like, at what point do I just say like, this isn't worth it? I have no idea. I honestly do watch a movie a day. And I feel like, like, I don't know if you guys have like going to bed routines. But one of my routines is that I just like I put on a movie or something and then I start getting tired. I'm like, all right, I'll turn it off and I go to bed.

Like, it's just, that's part of my routine. Like, I really have no idea how, I mean. Really? Yeah, I usually watch one movie a day like you at night. I don't fall asleep during you. I like, I watch it and then I go to bed after. Same. Yeah.

But I'm thinking like times in my life where I've gone on vacation. It's easy not to. I've done something where I'm not, like, not involved with movies or video games at all. And I think I could go a week. I think we could all go at least. We all say a week or so. There'd be a point. We're like, all right, I want to fucking see that.

I mean, that's, that's all of course. culture right there, video games, movies, and TV. Like, without that, like, what do you have to culture yourself with? Books? I could go the rest of my life, but only if I got horrifically blinded in some freak accident,

then I could go the rest of my life without watching anything. Yeah, I just listen to music, yeah. I'd just listen to audio plays then. For music, yeah. All right, next question. Jello Jake. Jello Jake asks,

what's a movie you guys have watched so ridiculously much, you can quote to a tea. Theirs would be Kung Pow. Oh, wow. That's a fucking random one. I've never seen that shit in the theater. Kung Pow would be one of them for me.

The Lion King would be one of them for me. There was a point in time where I memorized rat race. That's like a bit of a guilty pleasure now. It has one of the most obnoxious opening credits. The opening credits are like, They make me vomit now, but that was my favorite fucking thing when I was younger. And I still think the movie is pretty funny.

It's a good guilty pleasure movie for me. When Rush Hour 2 came out on VHS when I was a teenager, I fucking bought that thing and I watched it like three times a day. I can quote that entire movie. Like Jackie Chan in the plane, he's like Asian people are very calm. We never lose our coat. yeah right well Godzilla coming y'all be tripping you'll be like ga yaka guy yaka

yeah I love that movie when I was younger I have wow Chris very good I watched that movie so many times I mean I fucking love Chris Tucker though

in those movies he's so hilarious oh in the in the first one well y'all got like some chicken wings something like what's this greasy shit man some greasy shit and then the guy's like I ain't no punk bitch

I ain't no punk bitch he's like I ain't no pump bitch either man I ain't no punk bitch Yeah, I gotta watch those again. I haven't seen those in a long time. We need to re-enact all of our show. Now I need to review them.

I need to review them now. Fuck. Pulp Fiction Goodfellas. Those are the two most quotable, probably. That fucking scene when he's like, what am I? Clown? Best scene in cinema history. Alex?

What? The Oogie loves? Mine would be the, uh... The, the... The bionicle meme. When I was a kid, when that came out, I was completely obsessed with it for some reason. To the point where I got big A3 sheets of paper, and on my VHS, I would play a line and then write down the line. And then keep going all the way through until they had the whole script written down on paper for some reason.

I still don't know why I did that, but as a result, I just remember a lot of that movie's dialogue for some reason. That's fantastic. That's awesome. It's so terrible as well. I've never even heard of it Yeah, have time for another Anyway I sneak another

This one should be a short one Tate D Gibbs Says Which editing software do you think is best for movie reviews Movie reviews? What do we use? Premiere You should use Premiere Final Cut Pro is not bad

The seventh one, X is a little dumb don't use iMovie don't use windows movie maker don't use Vegas this reminds me like um that you just said that ralph and it was something i always wanted to tell you totally side point really quick have you ever considered making your logo be an animation of your face in front of windows movie maker yeah i've considered because ralph the movie maker who hasn't considered it yeah okay um sorry that was random um no no no it wasn't random at all people have suggested that okay good good good okay okay cool ralph the windows movie maker windows the movie maker whatever the fuck that's fucking that's fucking great um i started like the first program i ever

used when i was 14 years old uh 16 years ago my god what the fuck um was i movie and that's how i started like this first program i learned i progressed on to final cut pro um i've done adobe i have to do Adobe now. It's part of my schooling and so I'm learning it. I'm learning it. But I think whatever is most simple for you, man, like whatever you feel like you could be quick and but deliver a quality product, whatever you feel most comfortable using, use it. And that's premiere and final cut. But like Imovie and Windows Movie Maker, those are so slow. And just, they suck. They're limited. They're limited. You only get. like you could put one clip down or one

audio file, you have to get the more sophisticated programs if you want to make anything good. Cross fading audio is a complete bitch on I-movie, like you can barely even do it. It's not even like a lack of talent or knowledge. It's just what the program is capable of. It's just too slow

and the workspace makes no sense. You fucking, like the timeline is like it's like paragraphs or like it's written like a document where like the clip would go and then stop and it would continue on the next line it's like what the fuck is that who would edit a movie makes no sense um i use fcpx i'm used to it uh for what i'm doing it's it's probably the most streamlined for me like

with all the hotkeys and you know just the the type the type of stuff i'm doing on youtube i might not use it if i were making like a professional film yeah adobe is fine i don't consider it as streamlined for what I'm doing. I don't have any real issues with Vegas other than sometimes it just has weird compatibility issues with certain files, but it's acceptable. That's what kills me.

For what you're doing. And I don't know, there's other ones out there that I'm forgetting the names of, but I haven't really used those, so I'm not going to recommend them. But yeah. Yeah, Final Club ProX is a good one. That's what I use for YouTube.

It's fine. It's a very good one. I used it all the time. It's good for what I'm doing. It's very good for what it is. but like the reason final cut went out of business is because like they tried to sell that to professionals and the professionals this is just i movie pro and i'm glad i found its market the pros use avid which is have you guys used avid that shit is hard it's hard as fuck to learn

it's really a pain in the ass i don't know how it's like staring at war and peace the novel yeah that's exactly what it's like it's just it's this gigantic It's just gigantic amount of options. You shouldn't use AVID at all if you consider making internet content. Because the thing about Avid is it's good for cutting and editing, but that's it. Like if you try to do text or any kind of design elements or fading, it just comes out bad because it's not made for that. It's made for like 80-year-old editors who have been doing it for like, you know, 50 years. And they just...

They have multi-colored keyboards with like... out on a standing desk Uh-huh standing desk fucking treadmill desk or whatever whatever gimmick they want Yeah

Well the space dentist asks Does bad CGIi affect your overall opinion And score of a film Even if it has a limited budget What about in a film That even has a reasonable budget

For good CGI Bad CGI is always bad And distracting Always It depends For me If it's a new film Yes

If it's an old film No Like, if I'm watching an old film, I don't look at it and expect it to hold up to today's standards. Sometimes I actually find early CG kind of charming. Like, it's like, oh, look at that. Like Tram. Yeah, you know, like, oh, they tried, you know. But then, like now, yeah, like if I go to see fucking Venom.

Venom! Venom! Venom! I can't now say Venom without wanting to do that. my favorite part of the whole movie was that fucking song anyway it's yeah when I see when I see like two black gooey things like jumping on top of each other in the nighttime when there's a rocket ship launching like yeah I look at that and I'm like what the hell am I seeing and it absolutely affects my my score but if it's like an older movie I'm like I'm more forgiving because it's like okay well

you know we've we've progressed since then well i just have an issue that with anything that looks fake like if it looks fake and if it's bad cg i that just don't show it or build a prop that looks like it or as far as you said chris these new movies have no excuse the the big budget like justice league that movie has no excuse the 300 million dollar budget and it looks fucking terrible

but like you look at Jurassic park in 1994 looks fucking great was it 1994 it 3 93. Right, 93, sorry. But yeah, like, look what they did with CGI. And it's amazing because Spielberg knows how to make a good movie and knows how to incorporate it well. Yeah, and he would always use the CG sparingly.

And it would be, like, from the perspective of humans, like the T-Rex bursting out of the woods and eating the Gallimimus. That whole CG scene is, like, in the foreground, you have Sam Neal and the two kids. And it's just like, you're always seeing it with real-life things. at it. It's not like, you know... Yeah, it's really well done. It's not Jurassic World. He uses every trick in the book. He uses shadows. He uses smoke. He uses rain to like cover it. Yeah. Like, you just need to know what you're doing. Yeah. Like, I watch... And if it looks bad, if it looks fake, it's distracting and it takes me out of the movie. It's always bad. Yeah. Sorry. That's the biggest part about it, though, is, is that as a director, you should understand

the limitations of your budget and the limitations of technology before you've even gotten to making the movie, really. Like when you're deciding how to approach a certain scene, you know, even something as simple as like the first paranormal activity movie, they fully understood that if they're going to make convincing effects, they're going to do it during the nighttime scenes and with a grainy camera sort of thing, right?

And for the budget that they had, they could, you know, convincingly key out or, you know, edit out the, you know, person pulling the rope and it'll look real. The camera's stationary. Like you can have an understanding of something before you go into it. And again, Jurassic Park is a great example of that because CG was very limited for its time. So they just, most of those shots were sparingly and at night. Yeah, if you have bad CG in a movie, perhaps either you should have presented it differently or perhaps you should have written it differently. One of the, one of the most frustrating examples was in that a Cronenberg movie from

2015 or something Maps to the Stars and at the end of the movie there's this terrible terrible CG fire and all I'm thinking is like you're a director that's made films in the 80s just light a guy on fire he's right next to a pool

just use real fire you didn't even see him like burn to a crisp or anything it's like you could have just just do a real fire it would have cost less money probably just get a stunt double You know, when you can clearly... I don't know about less money, but it would have cost... It costs like nothing.

Stunt double, flames and fucking... To put in perspective, I am Facebook friends with a Cleveland stuntman who lights himself on fire, okay? And that's in fucking Cleveland, Ohio, okay? Like, I could call him up, give him a few hundred bucks, and have a guy on fire. Like, it's, like, that's how easy it is. And, you know, Cronenberg, as you said, he's Cronenberg. So like why? Yeah, you're totally right.

And I remember that scene too. It's lazy. Yeah, it is. It's always lazy, I think. And these limitations of what makes movies better. Like, oh, I can't just show a CG gorilla or whatever the fuck. So let me use shadows and rain to like make it creative. And then you got like the studio mentality, which is they think just that.

Like, oh, we just need shots of a gorilla with Dwayne Johnson. And then you get Rampage, which is the most uninspired fucking shitty-looking movie I've ever seen. That is the definition of a product movie. It comes down to, like, I think about the Scorpion King. Do you remember that shit? Yeah. Where's like the CG rock. Or the worst CG ever.

Classic. Ryan Reynolds's Green Lantern. Oh, that's a famous one. Or in the first Harry Potter movie, there's this really dreadful troll or something. I feel like it's just a lack of foresight. in terms of the technical ability. Like, that Scorpion King thing, actually, that's a bad example.

That probably looked fucking terrible at the time even. Say the troll from Harry Potter. At the time, that might have been the best CG available. Like, everyone must have thought, wow, that looks amazing. But if that's the whole point of the scene, if there's nothing else going on beyond just the visual effect, or take a look at the Star Wars prequels, how bad they look now, just on a pure technical level.

I think it is just kind of like a laziness, cockiness almost to this this technology like putting the technology before um everything else and yeah i think it's always distracting and always bad yeah i mean there's a there's a reason i seek out the original cuts of the of the star wars trilogy the original because laser dis i just can't look at the special edition man i can't well i have the harmy's despecialized thing have you heard about that yeah uh-huh yes yeah i got yeah he did a great job um But like I can't look at the special editions Like in return of the Jedi of the fucking Sarlac Pit

With like the duck head coming out It's just so fucking bad man It would just throw Remember when like these CGI Bisons Would just walk in front of the frame It's like why did they add that at all That adds nothing to the movie It's like what Alex said

It was like a cocky It's like look what we can do And then it's even weird for something like A recent film like Black Panther Where in that last act there's that dreadful in terms of visual like effects quality fight scene yeah i mean

with all the money all the prowess that marvel has that's the most creative like expensive thing you could do i mean that's gonna age dreadfully in like you're right i remember it's dreadfully a week later it aged as i watched it um like in my review for that i was like

the scene where uh tchalla and uh michael Jordan, I forget his name, they're falling and they're falling down and I was like, this looks like Spider-Man 3, like Peter Parker and Venom, Venom falling through the sky like spraying webs at each other for like this long unbroken CGI Toby McGuire face. Like it was just so distracting.

Yeah, it's like, how do you expect me to care when it looks that bad? When I'm that detached from reality, I feel like I'm watching a video game. One of the worst fineries in an otherwise good movie that I've seen is that Black Panthers. Like the whole movie felt fairly different from the pack in regards to the other mar. And then all of a sudden they're in a CGI train world.

And I'm like, come on. Like, what's happening right now? Yeah, it was dumb. All right. I guess, uh, I guess that's it. I want to do one more. If you want, I just, uh, I want to make sure that after you, uh, you're done recording, you have enough time to send me the file.

Yeah, we should, actually we should wrap it up. We should wrap it up. Okay. Okay. Who wants to introduce the movie? recommendation oh it's my turn that's right's you rough uh let me pull up the info real quick so my movie it's kind of a horror movie i'd say it's more on like the the psychological horror like i don't know if i'd even call it a horror movie it's a movie called don't look now

from 1973 interesting choice man yes so great choice man it's a little horrific cool it's so it's yeah no it is yeah especially especially the sex scene Uh-huh. Don't say anything. It's a little misleading. I won't say anything. Don't worry. Okay.

It's on my watch list already. Hope you guys enjoy it. Cool. Good. Don't look now. Enjoy it. I won't look now. Am I going to be able to find it?

I hope so. It's pretty famous. I hope you were able to find it. All right. Well, thank you everybody for listening to this episode of Sardana cast. If you want to join in for the film discussion, in next episode, make sure to watch the film beforehand, because we're going to spoil it. If you want to support the show or get the episodes early, $2 a month, sardonicast.com, sign up for the premium.

You'll get the episodes when they're edited before they're released publicly. Also, patreon.com slash sardonicast. We'll do the same thing. Thank you very much. Our guest, Chris Stuckman, we got Stuckmanize real good. I'm happy to hear it adequately stuck when I hear that no thank you thank you very much I I genuinely no bullshit do love talking to you guys you guys are really fun we love you too like talking to you too all right thank you everybody uh bye bye bye bye