Sardonicast - Sardonicast 214: Lee Cronin's The Mummy, The Bride!, Days of Heaven

Episode Date: April 27, 2026

Listen early and ad-free at https://sardonicast.com or https://www.patreon.com/Sardonicast. Merch: https://ymsmerch.com/products/normie-masterpiece-sticker-sheet Website: https://sardonicast.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Sardonicast Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/sardonicast Twitter: https://twitter.com/sardonicast Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/sardonicast.bsky.social Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sardonicast Sardonicast Highlights: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8AhJ0bzQgs5fb9m_ZCRqkw/featured Adam's channel: https://www.youtube.com/@YMS Alex's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/IHEOfficial Jake's channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ManCarryingThing Jake's movie channel: https://www.youtube.com/@womancarryingman Alex's Twitter: https://twitter.com/IHE_OFFICIAL Adam's Twitter: https://twitter.com/2gay2lift Adam's bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/yms.bsky.social Jake's twitter: https://x.com/ManCarrying Jake's bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/mancarryingthing.bsky.social Adam's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/YMS Jake's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mancarryingthing Intro music by: https://www.youtube.com/user/anUnkindnessvideo Timestamps: 0:00 BREAD 15:55 Lee Cronin's The Mummy 35:33 The Bride! 1:03:29 Days of Heaven 1:54:56 Questions 2:35:14 Recommendation + outro

Three, two, one. My darling, a revolution is coming. If Frankenstein frightened you, my next story will make you stand up and yell. Help. Hi, I am Jake from Man-Caring Thing. This is Sardonicast. And I'm Alex from I. And I'm going to go with, here comes the motherfucking Sardaticast.

Oh, that was a really good impression. That was good, right? That was really good. It's a good movie. should have introduced it. And that's, that's the intro. That's the two of us here. Excited to talk to you guys about film. Yeah, the spin on last week's, well, last episode's, uh, Wi-Fi issues. Oh, my God. Holy shit. You thought you could do this without me? What the heck? Um, no, no, we, uh, we didn't coordinate this in advance or anything. It jump scared me, though, man. Yeah. How's it going? I'm Adam

from your movie sex. I didn't want to do the intro today. I had a quote and I lost it. I thought I had a quote. And my brain's too much to remember every single quote from The Brighton. I didn't really feel like engaging with it again. That's fine. I think after what, 213? You're allowed to have a break on one. Oh, thank you.

I need this once, though. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. What's a big change, Adam? What's going on? Are you possessed by some 1800s moody writer or something? No, I think, yeah, probably actually.

That's it. I think that's actually what's happening. Oh, that would explain it. So I appreciate the support for my newfound predicament. Yeah. And of course, we're referring to a film called Undertone when we talk about possession and stuff, right? Okay. Yeah.

Yeah, no, I didn't even watch that. No, I didn't. I didn't. I did. Right. So, Alex, could you give us a quick recap? A couple people. did apparently I heard it was underwhelming is that's kind of what the trailer

looked like it was an underwhelming podcast horror movie I don't know it just fits in that bucket kind of like the mummy for me where it's like maybe at one point there's like a concept here to expand on but this this ain't really doing it for me in one ear out the other did either you see Pontypool no the name is ringing about there's it okay yeah well there's a horror movie called Ponty pool P-O-N-T-Y-P-O-O-L that was kind of cool and it was kind of cool and it was all it was like a radio host horror movie sort of thing and it was like I was just reminded of that when I watched the trailer for this other one I was like oh I why don't I just watch

pontie pool I think you might get something out of it's such an unusual name pontie pool yeah I don't remember why it's called that but memorable yeah I remember enjoying it it's a Canadian movie Ponty pool sounds like some British slang for when someone's banned from being in a public pool or something yeah stop being a Ponty pool pool, mate. Yeah, exactly. Except in real Britain, they don't even call it a pool. The swimming pool. They call it a splishy splash palace. The splash zone.

You're banned from the splash zone. So any other films? So I saw, let's see, Faces of Death, which was underwhelming as well. Sure. Yeah, now that's weird. Had some interesting style going for it, but Charlie Execk. was in it and had like two lines. It was very, very jarring. And she was, she did a terrible... As herself? Or as it? Because the moment came out recently too, right? With, I was like her. No, no, no. She was playing like, she was like the coworker. And she was there for like two scenes. And she had a horrible American accent. Oh, yeah. That doesn't really surprise me. Okay.

But, yeah, the movie was just, it was like an interesting concept, like commenting on how much violence is like pervasive online and everything and how that affects us. And the main character is like a moderator at a type of TikTok thing. So she like moderates content. And she ends up discovering like real life murder and investigates blah, blah, blah. There's a slasher. And it ends up becoming kind of like an uninteresting, you know, kind of preaching about how phone bad. But I, I liked some of it. It was trying. It was going for something. Yeah. There wasn't, yeah, I remember at the end of the last episode after we were kind of discussing like,

oh, what do we talk about that's like new in theaters? The mummy was one of them, but like, I don't know. We didn't really fully commit, and I saw those reviews come out. And I was like, well, this looks kind of mid and I'm very busy moving. So.

Yeah. Are you all done moving and everything? No. Not in the latest. Oh. I mean, in the slightest, yeah, that was an exaggeration. I assembled stools last night. I have a place to sit.

Nice. And that was satisfying. A place to start. Nice. I have a bread machine so I can make bread now. Because I'm also trying to do some lifestyle changes. Like, okay. Yeah.

This is obviously expensive. I shouldn't be ordering fucking Uber Eats postmates all the time. Right? I should try to make my own food. Yeah. However. I also have tendinopathy, wrist, you know, mobility issues. And so I'm like, okay, how do I design this space in a way that's good for me and accessible for my issues?

And so a bread machine was a pretty obvious answer to me because you just throw an ingredients and it does it for you. I don't have to need. I don't have to like roll, you know, all these things that would aggravate my symptoms. Like, okay, great. I literally have a thing where I pour stuff in it and press a button. And I set a timer so that it did it like and was ready for when I woke up. And it was a very nice, fresh bread. Pleasant feeling.

But also foreboding because I know it's just going to get me really fat. Nothing wrong with that. But I ate that whole fucking loaf of bread and I brought pieces of it to a friend's like bonfire and I had thick ass slices that I put on a stick and I toasted over a fire and the outside was crispy and the inside was still soft even though it was a day old and I felt very satisfied and humbled just munching on my my first homemade bread of all time even though I let a machine do it for me and I followed the instructions to a tea I get to you with a sourdough starter could get into that your little saldo pet oh yeah yeah no I'm going to try that for sure

Yeah, I'm looking up the process. I'm not doing it just yet because I also have to plan like, okay, if I'm making an entire loaf of bread for myself, I got to make sure that I, you know, I'm not like leaving out of town that week or that I have other plans for, you know, like I want to make sure it doesn't go to waste, right? So I got to be mindful. Mm-hmm. That's great. I'm happy about your bread journey. Thank you. But I would like to move on to the.

the next topic of discussion. I want to talk about my bread more. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's cool. That's cool. But speaking of bread, Cinemicon happened in Las Vegas. And nobody got bread there. No, I'm sure there was, I mean, they're making bread, right? They're making what's...

No, well, never mind. Okay, that's fine. Clavicular was at Cinemacon, I believe? No way. Is it? film? No way. You're joking. I thought you just like overdose. No, I'm just making I'm just making, I'm trying to get off to

Oh my God. I think I think the name CinemaCon is like It tells you everything you need to know It makes me not want to go there Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, what if we took the concept of Comic Con and applied it to films? Right? Oh, Star Wars Marvel. Well, it's it's like there It's it's the

The theater, the producers, they're trying to, they're talking to the theater chains. You know, they're like selling them on, hey, we've got some good movies for you guys to show in your theaters. You know, and they, you know, they, how could it be a gimmick when they show a trailer for Avengers Doomsday, okay? And no one can even get the footage. Like, imagine, think of it. We could have been there. The three of us in Las Vegas watching, watching shows and drinking and gambling. And then we watched the Avengers Doomsday trailer before everyone.

It's in Vegas. Think how cool that would be. That manufactured hype machine, though, of like all the people who, you can't even watch the trailer. It's people talking about them describing what happened in the trailer. You were like watching their react, them describing it. God damn it. And I heard it's a lot of people turning around while Robert Downey Jr. talks with an accent.

I couldn't imagine wanting to be in that chaotic, claustrophobic, people-packed environment just to see a trailer that's going to be out on YouTube. Yeah. And like, what? Let's just say under a month. Yeah. I don't know, right? Like, it's a trailer.

Like, you're literally, like, you're paying probably hundreds of dollars and the entire purpose of it existing is just so that you can generate marketing hype. Yeah. I could smell that description, too, when you were describing that. I just don't want to be in that far. Yeah, yeah. But, I mean, think how amazing it'd be. there. David Ellison gives a presentation about paramount. I mean, come on. It's beautiful and

interesting. Yeah, like it seems like the type of place where someone's going to pitch the next like Quibi or something, you know? Yeah. Like money people trying to convince a scam. Is Quibi still around? No, I think it died. That's fucking sad. Yeah. Jeffrey Katzenberg, RIP, he didn't die, but he's no. He did. He did die. did no he didn't what no I think recently yeah let's see no he's 75 he's good oh wait no sorry I'm confused him with uh Roger Allers Roger Ailes what no fuck who am I thinking of yeah Roger Alers oh I don't know who is uh was a Disney director he's one of the co-directors of the Lion King that's why I thought that's Katzenberg yeah January 17

it's 2026. Man, we could do a whole, we could do a whole episode on Katzenberg. I mean, that would be. Anyways, I thought I'd bring up CinemaCon briefly. Also wanted to, yeah, you are so welcome. Also wanted to bring up and let you guys know, share the good news, right?

The film Michael, which is coming out this week, the early reviews have just dropped, and it is at a fresh 33% on Rotten Tomatoes. Nice. I'm hyped. You can't trust the critics. You can't. You absolutely can't.

This is a movie for the fans. This is a movie for people who like the movie, okay? Yeah. Trust the fans of the movie, the people that like it. I can't take it anymore. I can't. What is the metascore? You know, that's pretty impressive for Rotten Tomatoes

because Rotten Tomatoes tends to over inflate reception. I was a bit shocked. Oh, big time. Like, that means it's really bad. Yeah, exactly. I'm excited now. I was kind of like, okay, whatever. Now I'm excited.

I think it's funny bad. Or all of the critics are biased. They were paid off. Because they all, no, yeah, because the, um, the, uh, something about, uh, being paid, yeah. Okay, that's great. Are you trying to discredit my perspective? No, no, that was good. We're riffing here.

Um, what? Yeah. I have any other. I have, I, I haven't been riffing. I've been completely serious this whole time. Okay. I want to talk more about my bread.

Any other bread thoughts? Bread? Yes. No, yeah. It was a French bread. How are we feeling about rye bread? Oh, fries? I'm not sure.

I try. I try rye. Yeah, no, it was a French bread. The outside was very crispy. I was shocked that sugar wasn't one of the ingredients. Fun fact, my son is obsessed with sourdough bread right now. Oh, shit. What?

I literally, we literally cannot say the word bread around him. Oh, my good. We're like, hey, should we give him some BRA-A-D? And, like, I cannot eat a sandwich around him. Oh, my God, really? He wants to have the bread. Yeah, no, no. And, like, I can't cook anything in the toaster oven

because if he hears the ding anywhere in the house, he's like, bread, bread, bread. Oh, my God. Yeah, so. Redulctrinated, that's crazy. That's a keeper. Yeah, so share some of your bread sometime. He would appreciate it.

Sure. I can make bread whenever I want. The power of technology. I feel like a magician. Any other good films that are about bread? There's a film. There's a film called Our Daily Bread, which was made somewhere in Europe.

And I think it's like 2006, maybe somewhere around there. Not to be confused with other films. the same title. But this one is a bunch of a bunch of static stationary shots of things involving food production ranging from you know just showing workers like you know harvesting or washing fruits and then suddenly you're watching like a fucking C-section performed on a cow like uncensored and it's like wow. Like, what the fuck?

And like, it's kind of eye-opening without commentary. And I love documentaries like that where like the footage speaks for itself. It's like, oh, damn, we are disproportionately disconnected from our meals. Damn. That's beautiful. And there's bread in there somewhere, I think. Okay. But I mean the title also.

We got Wallace and Gromit. They were bakers for one of the episodes. Matter of Loaf and Death. Let's go. That's a good one. I found an article called five films and documentaries for bread lovers. So there's, there's, we just rebounding as like a bread show now because I'm, well, down with that. I mean, now that there's a breadtuber on the podcast, I think it's appropriate.

I think, yeah, let's talk about the conquest of bread. I think we can, we can bring in some of that socialist insight. I think like, no, Krapakin wasn't a socialist. What was he? I'm thinking of the book, Conquest of Bread. Yeah. Which is how Bread Tube got its name. Am I?

You could just, like, read the book for, like, the rest of the episode. Peter Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread. He was a proponent. No, you have to do it sarcastically, then it's, like, satire and it's fair use. Otherwise, it's copyright punishment. Okay, no, I'm not reading it. So, like, say it with, like, a mocking voice, and then just read the whole thing. He was a Russian anarchist, political philosopher and geography.

No, he was a proponent of anarchist communism. Okay. Okay, pal. Okay, pal. And he loved bread. You guys wanted to talk about the mummy, right? No, no, we got a few more minutes on bread. Okay, sure.

Lee Cronin's loaf of bread. Oh, good. Yeah. I went on like a track and Odyssey to see this damn movie. Why? Because I made like a mistake. It's completely my fault. I made a mistake that I hadn't done before.

I'm surprised this has actually taken me this long to make this mistake. But I turned up for my screening yesterday. And this cinema I went to It was just closed I was like what Shit I got a movie to catch But I just booked the ticket

For the wrong day I was like shit I gotta see this for the podcast So drove to like an hour In the other direction Did you what I thought I thought when you and I had a conversation About it

We were both under the impression Like oh yeah Like if the reviews are made We'll just watch the bride instead I thought that was what we said I'd really seen the bride And I don't know I was still

I'm just saying you didn't have to. I'm just saying you didn't have to. That's how dedicated you are. He's dedicated to this podcast, Adam, in ways you wouldn't understand. Yeah, I'm dedicated to bread. Yeah, once I have the mission, like, I'm dedicated to Lee Cronin.

You know, he's my number one guy. When I saw that name, I was like, I've got to go see Lee Cronin's latest, you know, like everyone at the moment. Who directed it? Yeah, I don't know. I can't remember. There is something kind of annoying when someone puts their name at the

beginning of the movie and they're not like super established right I get it it's bozy I think I think they think that they can make themselves a household name by doing that but John that's what John Carpenter did like he was putting his name on the movies before he was a big deal he's like John Carpenter's Halloween like as officially a part of the title yeah just not the poster because like the poster yeah he's like demanded his name be above the title and then well actually I don't know is it John Carpenter's Halloween or it's just Halloween but But I know that he demanded his name be like, it's like John Carpenter's, right?

At like what point in his career, though? Like, surely not before his third movie? And like, how successful? It was super. I think from Assault on Pressing 13, I'm pretty sure. Yeah. John Carpenter? And like how successful were his first few?

Not. It's very successful, I mean, a little bit. It does come across on its face, like, Hideo, Kajima, like, hey, this is an ego thing. Yeah. But from what I was reading, I think it was actually more of like a Blumhouse. We need to make sure this is distance from the Brendan Frazier Mommy franchise. I think it's literally as simple as that. And that, yeah, anything to do with that because they wanted it to be like a serious horror movie.

And Blumhouse are quite, I don't know, skittish with that sort of thing. So I don't even think from what I was reading that Lee Cronin wanted it necessarily, but it's just one of those like take one for the team, business realities perhaps. Because it hasn't really worked out in his favor. maybe for the, it's got eyes on it. It has kind of like worked for sort of rebranding it. It's like, well, we know it's not Brennan Frazier, at the very least. It's just a shame it couldn't be very entertaining movie, really.

It's just the Blumhouse effect every single time with these guys. God damn it. I'm sorry, they just pissed me off with their horror movies. Like they're, they're so lazy. They're so dull. Why is this two hours, 14 minutes long? You went out of your way to see it. Yeah, why did we do this?

I think I'm making good decisions in my life. Yeah. Okay. I mean, I'm happy you're happy. And we're happy that we saw Lee Kronin's the Mummy, even though it was a really boring fucking experience. So boring.

Like, okay, here's the thing. Did you guys see Evil Dead Rise? Yes. I enjoyed it. Yeah, it was great.

He did a great job with that. He, like, captured that Sam Rami energy. It was like really. contained script and story and it was like, this is exactly what you're good at doing. Like, this is the exact stuff you're good at doing. And this movie is like, let's see if we can do a little bit more. It doesn't want to just be like an evil dead movie, but it ends up being like an

evil dead movie, but with a little bit of like, hey, we need to have like, you know, the trauma stuff and like grief and all that stuff. But it's like the problem is this movie doesn't know what it wants to be. Lee Cronin clearly relishes doing the stylistic big. set pieces where there's a bunch of blood and guts and squishy vomit and all the juices. And, you know, it's very visceral. And it's fun when it gets to that point, when it goes crazy over the top. But every time it slows down when it's like, our daughter has been missing for eight years,

like, you haven't been the same at home. What is our marriage? You know, it's just like you can tell there's zero interest in it. The script is really dull at those points. And it's like, it's like, first off, it's not a mummy movie. It's a daddy movie. It's not really an evil dead movie. It's an Exorcist movie.

It's a little girl possessed. Like, it has nothing to do with mummies except for it starts in Egypt. You know, it's just... Which kind of sucks, right? Yeah, that was a big thing to me. Like, those movies are always so annoying. Name a good one other than The Exorcist. Yeah, exactly.

Like, they're so formulaeical, like a poltergeist that was reminding me of as well. That kind of structure. But, yeah, it wasn't distinguishing itself as, like, why it needed to be a mummy movie outside of it. It's basically just a ghost. It was basically a zombie. There's not, like, really a spin outside some of the stuff to do with the, like, rapping, which I wish they kind of delve more into with, like, the whole setting of it. Because, yeah, it does just evolve into a weirdly overly long, extremely boring and dull.

It wants to kind of be a little bit of, like, an elevated horror type situation, like a hereditary or something about this, like family and there's, like, something deeper going on here and have some sort of, like, pathos or. like a thick atmosphere to it, but it can't find an angle. Yeah, it's kind of like excruciatingly boring for the entire runtime. Yeah, and it totally can't figure out what it wants. Give me Lee Daniels is the mummy. Lee Daniels is the mummy. Actually, it would probably be better than that. I mean, another thing, and I kind of wanted, I hope you do watch this at some point,

Adam because I would love to hear your reaction to the audio in this and the sound design. It is, I mean, I've seen some like bad horror movie sound design. This movie, it was like the most insecure sound design where every second there's some weird cello or violin or bang or crash or bells. It's like every cliche. It has no, there's no cohesion. There's no theme. It doesn't have anything to do with like Egypt or anything. It's just like noise, nonstop noise, zero silence. Yeah, there was no confidence to that. It just felt like, oh shit, we don't know, like what we're communicating, just turn the volume up. It does get very frustrating after a certain point. Like, it's just blasting you with that score, with that sound effect all the

time. It's like, it's incredibly incredibly obnoxious. I mean, sorry. No, I mean, it's just one of those elements where it's like it's trying to overcompensate, I think, stylistically for a lot of what is lacking in the story. You know, I feel like probably Lee Cronin, knows what he's great at and what he isn't. And also, you can tell where the script is weaker. And it's like, okay, well, we'll do like a ton of split diopter shots, even when it doesn't really make sense to do it. I never thought. Every time you see a split diopter shot these days, everyone's like, oh, base, it's like Brian De Palma. And it's so fun. Like, hey, yeah, you're doing a split diopter. That's cool. I notice it. And therefore, I'm a critic. Well, no, not even that.

It's just fun. You know, it's like, you're trying something. You're doing something interesting or, you know, a throwback to how things were. But this movie, I literally never thought I'd be exhausted or tired of split diopter. I'm like, dude, and it's just the most random things that were like a kid is watching TV, split diopter with a parent doing. It's like not even like building the tension or anything. It's like unnecessary. Why are we doing that? No, I felt the exact same way. It just felt like, what is, why have you chosen? Why is this creative choice at all? Like, what is this helping with this movie? Like, so essentially just a lack of restraint throughout is what I'm here.

Yeah. It's the bum house problem for me where nearly all of their films just feel like rushed unpolished first drafts like at best, yeah, just something they whipped together like a script and a weekend and then just rushed it together. Like they're so unpolished and just never have much cohesion or just any focus, really. And I feel like there probably is an okay 90 minute or so movie in here. I just don't get what it had to be so bloated and just has the, this whole, yeah, it's got like an epilogue for some reason that just felt like this added nothing.

It's got this whole like swath of characters that are like, what is this adding having like this lack of focus? It really needed kind of a central character to keep it focused because it just at a certain point just starts jumping around to all these random characters and you don't really feel like it's anchored or anything. So when you're supposed to be fearing for this family and this like mummy situation that's in there and it's more just kind of frustrating as to like, wait, the jumping off point is them getting this mummy, this like girl that's been trapped in this sarcophagus for what is it, eight years, seven, eight years, they mentioned. And then the doctors are just kind of like, hey, just take her home, a bit of TLC will sort

her out, good and proper. And it's like, that's where we're like starting with. How am I supposed to take this seriously? Maybe if it was a bit more like, you know, self-aware. She like cannot move. Yeah, she can't. She's like in such a state. Her actual skin is like feeling off of her body.

She's like, you know, she's like, feeling off of her body. You can't communicate or do anything. And she's just kind of handed off to these parents. And I don't know, maybe if they wanted to make that some of the commentary of the film or what it was trying to say. But I really didn't feel like it was saying anything. Like, what was the film actually going for outside of, you know, trying to scare you or make it uncomfortable? It didn't feel like it had like much law or like an angle that makes it like this is what makes this horror classic or whatever it needed to be. Well, it's also like if you're doing an exorcism type of movie, like you've got to do.

take it seriously. And like the reason why the exorcist's work isn't because it was just big, crazy moments that we all remember the girl running down the stairs backwards and all that crazy stuff. What's important about that movie is just like how grounded it is. It feels extremely real. And it's like

most of it just conversations. You know, this movie again, it just, it goes completely over the top. It has no idea what it wants to say. And it's dealing with like the story in itself is pretty upsetting. Like, their child is kidnapped and gone for eight years.

And that's like they, it's funny because they're talking about it and speculating and they see what their daughter went through. And they're speculating going like what happened to her. And everything you could imagine possibly, they talk about sex trafficking. They talk about like the most horrific stuff that could have happened to her and what she went through. It's all more scary than, yeah, she was in a coffin and she was possessed. You know, it's just kind of like, I don't know, it just, it just like cuts all of the steam and energy out of a movie and out of horror itself. Like, horror is supposed to get under your skin and freak you out. And like, yeah, you can have all the pus and slime and goo and vomit you want.

But like, if you're missing the, like, the actual things that we're scared of and actual stuff that we think about late at night, then what are you doing? I don't know. Yeah. It's so like pain by numbers to the to the degree where like bring her back last year was basically like parodying the kind of tropey elements of what this film's going for with it answering questions of like, oh, where was the, what happened to the kid during this, this break is kind of like the, the crux of the film with the father being like an investigator and trying to figure that out. And there's also a cop investigating too and all these separate lines like these. ABC stories don't really overlap or come together in a way that's very satisfying. The investigation is so, it means nothing because we know what happened. She just got possessed by a mummy. Okay, great. We get it. They're like so intent.

Like what happened to her? What happened? We see she is a mummy. Like you have a mummy daughter. Like what else do you need to know? Like she's crawling on the ceiling and breaking people's necks. Like, come on. She's eating scorpions.

She's eating scorpions in the hallway. like in their basement and the mom is just like she needs to be with her family and the dad's like maybe she needs some more help yeah they love the CG bugs maybe they should have done like the prey route where it's like oh this is a surprise mummy film by the end of it maybe just called it Lee Cronin's the I'm not sure yet yeah if it leaned into its setting though like the the scenes that actually were in Egypt and had like Egyptian characters and that kind of stuff was like way more intriguing. Yes.

But most of the movies just in like a house Albuquerque. It's just a... Yeah, like hereditary or Baltickeguists or however many of these kind of tropey movies you want to.

And it's just a generic, spooky Blumhaus house. Yeah, yeah. And you could just swap out this creature for anything. It didn't really feel inspired. It just kind of felt like, and it is a bummer because it

he turned down making the sequel to Evil Dead rights to make this. Oh, he turned it down? Basically... Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah, he had a choice. He took the gamble with this. Dude.

So unfortunate, because it's basically, all the best parts of this movie are just when it's like that, a rip off of people with that movie, basically. Yeah. Yeah. Like a similar kind of tone. Um,

so it just feels like, damn, why'd you do that? Cause if you just continue what you're doing with the Evil Dead Rise, I feel like you're onto something there that's like, sustainable. There's something to that where this, I don't even really get what the swing is,

what the risky, what is it about this project that would have been so, like, oh, I've got to do this for Blumhouse type thing, because, I don't know, it's like not come together as far as the joke is his name now. Like, it's turned his name into like the punchline. Kind of, yeah. Which obviously is not ideal for that. Yeah.

When it's like, I don't know, there's more going on than that. Yeah, I wonder how much control he had even. Yeah, exactly. And then how much, how much it affects his career, I guess, is how much money it makes to a degree. I mean, he'll get work after this for sure. Like one movie that doesn't do well, doesn't like kill your career. Evil Dead Rise did really well. I'm sure he'll. And if, I mean, horror movies are like bankable and if you make them cheap, like that you can really turn apart. Yeah. That's Blumhouse's whole. That's their whole thing. Yeah. Make it cheap. Yeah.

Jamie Lee Curtis recently came out complaining about Jason Blum and how cheaply the Halloween movies were made. Apparently, she didn't realize it was supposed to be a trilogy until after they shot the first one. He was like, yeah, yeah, we're doing a trilogy. So I don't know. She missed that. We're getting a couple more Evil Dead movies, though. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Evil Dead Burn coming out this year.

The director, I have not seen anything that they've made, but they've got a couple things that look interesting. infested has got like a good meta score so I'm intrigued by that and then sorry I keep having to clear my throat do you need some bread long story evil dead wrath 2008 directed by Francis Galupi who made

the last stop in Yuma County which was great and I would recommend so I'm excited about that actually you should you would both like it actually cool I'll check that out I like how they keep passing it to like up and coming filmmakers

Yeah no that's super cool That's a that's a great Yeah that's a good idea Yeah As much as I would love Love another evil dad directed by Ramey Like Sure yeah I mean

You can do whatever he wants It's still cool that they're like Keeping the franchise alive In this way And like giving new opportunities And trying different things It's like a flexible Flexible franchise

When you can have Army of Darkness and Evil Dead Rise in the same list of films. Well, we could like, you know, Sam Ramey could just franchise one of his other films. We could get like, drag me to heaven. It's like just the same movie, but like the good ending. I agree with you. She like repents right before. Sounds like a daily wire. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Oh, my God. Sorry, I just, I got reminded. minded of God's not dead, which is not daily wire, but there's a scene that's very insane to exist. Oh, have you guys seen this movie? I don't, I think someone Ramey may have directed it. It's called Bakery in Brooklyn. And it's about a woman, she inherits a historic bakery and learns how to make bread.

Oh, my God. I'm just saying, like, this is, I'm, we're talking about our bread lovers on the podcast. they want to hear us. Oh my God, I'm watch listening. Sounds like an Adam type movie? Yeah, so more bread movies. Do you guys have any other thoughts about this film, The Mummy Add Alex, do you want to?

Mostly just the whole cast was atrocious. So there was never a chance, really, for it to sell anything. With it being this kind of, this is a tight-knit family, and it's about the family kind of being slowly torn apart. And the dad sucks, the mom. sucks and then they start arguing for like the dumbest reasons where it's like they have like one argument yeah and the reason they're arguing is just like this is so like forced and unbelievable and then there's all the kid actors coming together so it's like this perfect little

potion of Blumhouse shite yeah this was a no-go for me a couple little flashes here and there like oh if you'd like indulged in that or like developed that in some way or had like a character to show me this through maybe could have done something but no it just feels kind of half fast and it's what like a one one and a half star for me nice thumbs down um i think i gave it the same or maybe i gave it two two stars um but yeah it's it's quite quite dull really unfortunate uh why does every possession film require that the possessed person crawl on the ceiling at some point. Like literally every possession film.

I mean, it's not the worst one. I mean, there was like the Pope's Exorcist or something with Russell Crow. If they don't crawl on the ceiling, then they might be faking it. That's true. Yeah, that's how you know it's real. It's proof. You go, whoa, that's impossible. Yeah.

All right. So what's the next film we're talking about? Bride. A motherfuckering bride. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm a fucking bride. Wait, say that again, Alex, in that voice?

The motherfucking plight. It's been a while since I've been in a movie and it's like sandbagged itself real quick. Like in that opening sequence, I was like, oh, yeah. Like, I was expecting it to be kind of cringy, but, dude. That opening, like, monologue is, like, cringe-worthy. It sends a shiver down your spine and, like, oh, my God. legendarily bad performances from Jesse Buckley and Christian Bail here

Best actress winner about Jesse Buckley Yeah fresh off that wood And Christian Bale too Like it's quite intriguing to me what happened with this I'm curious to what you guys think Yeah you guys go first Yeah this is a movie that wears itself on its sleeve It's

It's as if somebody watched the wrong Tim Burton movies and then took away all the wrong things and just tried to replicate it. It's confusing to try and think about what anyone was supposed to get out of this. Or who it's for? Yes. Yes, that's the question. Who is it for?

Because, yeah, it's wearing its inspirations on its sleeve to this, you mentioned Burton degree this absurd. degree. But there's like the kind of Joker thing going on, like the Bonnie and Clyde kind of thing. Almost like a Christopher Nolan kind of thing as well with like Christine Bale and like that whole scene where there's like it's kind of framed similarly to the Dark Night with the Joker coming into that kind of party and it becomes like a whole like revolutionary kind of sequence. I really felt like with it being Maggie Gillenhorn, her being in that movie and Christian Bail being there, I felt like, yeah, we're going to go for like a scene, kind of like that, that kind of, you know, that scale, that kind of feeling to it.

This is big, this is important. We have these extravagant characters and we're going to bring this somewhere and it's going to be big and epic and just falls flat on its face. Yeah, it's very 2010s Tumblr coded. It's very much like we're doing something. And we're doing a feminist retake, you know, take of Frankenstein. And it's like, well, Frankenstein was, you know, arguably one of the most important feminist texts, you know. Mary Shelley, who's like, it's just, it's so, the choice, the main choice that was most baffling to me, like you guys were talking about, the very beginning, we have Mary Shelley in like a disembodied space. Speaking like Captain Jack Sparrow on even more drugs, like, I don't know what the choice was that.

But it's like, first of all, why are we, like, Mary Shelley, okay, she possesses like a woman in the 1920s. In the universe of her own story. Yes, in the universe of her own story. She possesses, it makes no sense. She's a character canonically in the thing she wrote, maybe. But, I mean, she didn't do that, but Maggie Gyllenhaal interprets it that way. Because Frankenstein exists in that world, but also she's possessing the woman. Yeah.

And she's not like a right. like a normal person. Like Mary Shelley was a human being who wasn't insane. You know what I mean? Like she was a person. Yeah, who knows? Why is she, why when she possesses this woman, she acts like an idiot? Like she literally acts like, I don't even know. Like she just rhymes. She's just like, professor, professor, captain. Like a cartoon captain. Yeah. Like if Harley Quinn was taking theater classes. Oh my God. Yes. 100%. when I first saw it I was trying to describe it to you guys I was I was like yeah

I can't even describe like what the choice was with their performance you have to see it to believe it yeah and you know what I'm glad that you didn't convince us to see it in theaters I'm glad I got to see this

not in a fucking theater because this was it felt very long and I needed to be able to vocalize how I feel about the movie without disturbing people so yeah making good choices not only is it very long it's very very chopped up you can tell it's

been like mangled in the editing i know right and like weird reshoots kind of thematic it's like frankenstein yeah because what is it trying to do like what it's kind of like a murder mystery bonnie and clide like but it's also like joker oh it's very joker where there's like there's like there's like musical numbers kind of and it's like a dream like you oh what's real what's what's in the bride's head, but also there's a revolution and people are being inspired by the bride and it sparks this whole... Somehow. What the hell was that?

I want to know what... I'm so sick of that trope in like so many movies. I feel... What was it recently that? The Running Man did a similar thing where the, you know, the sparking revolution thing and it just feels really insincere and just like, oh, what do we do with this to make it feel grand and important? Oh, a revolution is sparked and it spreads virally.

through the 20s in Chicago yeah what the voice and because like Jesse Buckley she's like putting everything into it too like yeah she's not holding anything back watching this didn't make me feel

as though she's a worse actor no me neither it made me it made me feel like oh they're telling her to do something that doesn't make any sense and she's doing it which is like you know, it's like she doesn't care about her own ego and she's just doing it for the

filmmakers, which is really sweet. What a nice thing to do. Yeah, it's like Nicholas Cage, you know. It's going for it. Yeah. I don't care if I look terrible. This is what they want me to do and it's awful. Yeah.

Like she was doing something. That's for sure. I think like it could have worked if it didn't have that position. element, which was really weird. And also, not only was it off-putting, it didn't work for the character because she didn't really have a character outside of being possessed. And then anytime, like, okay, if you're trying to make a story about, like, a badass feminist, like, sparking the revolution and she's like the female Joker, like, okay, do that,

you know, whatever, she's a badass, she kills people, she causes a revolution. But then don't, like, water it down with this weird thing where every time she kills someone. And first off, she never just kills dudes. She kills people who are clearly like bad, who are like assaulting other women, you know. She's like a vigilante almost. So it's like, she's not really bad. She's just like, she's helping people out. She's just like going over at the top with it. And then every time she does a murder, she, her other personality comes in and she's like, who am I? Why did I do that? Killing is bad. And it's like, can, like, guys, come on. Like, it just feels very moralistic and just like this kind of hedging your bets on on people's

response to her behavior and it's like we get it it's a movie like she's she's the joker like let her do her crazy stuff and um i just found that incredibly annoying oh it was so annoying like it wouldn't let you enjoy it like you got to feel bad a flip thing yeah it was impossible to enjoy that that whole dogotomy was like what are we doing here And like some of these performances they're getting out. We haven't mentioned Penelope Cruz. She was like a detective. She was weird, yeah.

She was like awful. And it's like a line delivery was so bad. Yeah. She looked like a child wearing an adult Halloween costume and wig. Yeah. Like her clothes didn't fit and the wig didn't fit. She was just walking around. It was so weird.

So I was trying to make that an empowering character too, right? Oh yeah. The 20s super sexist. Yeah. Peter Sarsgaard character is like the lead, but she's doing all the real work. And we're trying to do something with that, but they don't really get enough screen time. I thought Peter Sarsgaard was okay. He was like the only person who wasn't embarrassing himself, I guess.

The thing from the main coast. But still worse than usual. Yeah, yeah. The thing about Peter Sarsgaard's whole character in this story is that I love how he's shot in one scene, basically, implying he's been killed. And then the next scene, which must have been a fucking reshoot. There's no way. He says, yeah, I was shot in the foot.

And actually, I'm going to be done with the case. That's right. So you go on and take over and that whole subplot is just gone. Yeah, why did that happen? That's right. Why would you do that? It's like they needed him to explain a little bit more. And they're like, oh, shit, we just killed him off.

Okay, well, let's just have him actually be alive. He was only shot in the foot, even though he, like, falls and grabs his stomach or whatever. Leave a note. Yeah, just like, okay. Here's a little more context about my. relationship to the bride and everything and why I feel guilty. Okay, now that's wrapped up. You take over the case. Bye, bye, bye, I'm gone. It's just, it's very bad, like, patching up of this film structurally. It's just, what did you guys think of the musical sequence? Because I actually

Very disappointing. I didn't mind it. I was like, okay. If anyone's seen, like, a single Bollywood movie, that's, that's an embarrassment. Like, that's, that's, that's like, offensive for like what what a fucking musical scene could be. Oh, that was okay. It's like I wasn't even convinced that their dancing was originally choreographed to that song until the very end where he said the lyrics out loud. I was like, oh, okay, they actually did. Because they didn't utilize the rhythm of the song. They didn't choreograph to like the beats of the song.

They just did a dance that felt like fucking independent of what the song was. And all the needle drops were fucking cringe. Oh, yeah. Yeah? So many of the song choices were shit. What offended me was the overt reference to young Frankenstein with singing Anything Goes and it's just like, I don't know. I think it was trying to be funny.

It thought it was being kind of comedic and clever. Yeah. Yeah. Like when the credits start, it's playing like Monster Mash from memory. Yeah, this is satirical and kind of clever. Isn't this like a fun modern twist on a classic you know and understand? Girl Joker. Yeah.

I'm crazy. It just doesn't come together. I'm super curious from the Maggie journal angle because like she directed the Lost Daughter in 2021, which was like a drama, right? I didn't actually see it, but it like really well. That was good. Olivia Coleman in it. Seems like decent.

So then this is way more of like a swing into like a genre kind of. film with a huge huge budget too like a 80 million dollars I don't know what they were thinking as far as like yeah you I think you said it Adam like who is this for how could they possibly think this was going to like kind like what was the angle they thought this was going to connect culturally who wanted to make it and why yeah exactly because it feels at least with like the second joker movie which was like philips just middle fingering everybody it seemed like sure that had the first movie and seemed like yeah of course they want to make a sequel where this is like what do you what wave are you even trying to ride with this like I really

don't get it um here's a question for you both joker folia do or the bride uh I would I would sooner watch folia do again folia do I think I would too I'm really torn on that because I've I found parts of this film quite like fascinating and kind of intriguing. I was bored and angry. Especially in the middle section when it, when it does devolve into like that revolution kind of plot. I was kind of like laughing at that whole sequence because I just thought it was so like

clunky and badly assembled and kind of confusing like conceptually and like just, it's like every level. Like what a, it was just like so bamboozled by it where I was so bored by that second Joker movie. I think I'd actually choose the bride again, maybe because it's slightly shorter. I didn't even know if that's true. Yeah, I don't even remember the runtime of the Joker movie. I do remember that I enjoyed the shit auto tune in Joker Folliata.

And I also remember enjoying the disrespectful handling of characters near the end. It was really funny to me. I can't think of anything I enjoy about the bride. Do you guys remember when Sorry, this is a little unrelated But when Foliadou came out Everyone was like, this is the worst movie ever made And then Quentin Tarantino for some reason is like

Yeah, I watched this in an empty theater in Tel Aviv And I loved it It was like, Quentin Tarantino Now is not the time for this Like Yeah Remember when the trailer came out And people were like that shot

where he makes the smiley face. With this smile, yeah. That's a genius. That's a genius. This is top 10 cinema. People were hyping that shit up. From the trailer. Well,

yeah, I mean, it goes to show how this movie affected us when we're doing everything we can to instead talk about Joker fully into it. I mean, it's, it, this is a movie that in, inherently makes you think of other films because it's not fucking original. It's so fucking derivative. It's obviously trying to be a handful of other things and you can tell exactly what it's trying to be. It's just not competent at even making a fucking copycat version.

Like it doesn't even understand what made those other things at least palatable to mainstream audiences. Can we talk to, can we talk spoilers real quick? Yeah, we talk. Spoil the whole fucking thing. Okay. Did you guys like the subtlety of when Frankenstein gets shot and then the bride screams Me Too? Oh yeah.

No, that was funny. Yeah. She said it more than once. I mean, it was powerful. She said it like twice. And I was like, okay. I mean, that's basically how the movie opened too. It was like, you know, right after the Mary Shelley monologue, you got like, oh, this is no

place for women. Whatever like it's like okay one line and then two lines and then three lines. It's like okay that's the whole scene is you're just like the most obvious commentary in the fucking world. I'm like okay well this is gonna go anywhere. And just like the you know the simplicity of like Gollum talking to himself in Lord of the Rings or something. The way that's like blocked out that like makes sense.

There's something like alluring and kind of like on a character level it pulls you in with that this is like every time they do it it's in like an even more confusing circumstance like the space they're interacting in what they're talking about like the drive

of why anything is happening like the line between what's real and what's not is so kind of uninteresting and so misguided and seems just so like preoccupied with this is like slay frank and

stone, you know, like the whole, like, the ink on her face and her costume design and the hair and everything. It seemed like, we, we want this to be in, like, hot topic, you know? We want, like, bags with this shit on it type thing. But just not in service of anything, like, it's just kind of like a glorified aesthetic, but, like, in service of nothing. Yeah, I mean, and it's just, like, the plotting is really incomprehensibly bad. Yeah. Like, the climax of the movie after Frankenstein dies and then she tries to revive him and it's like, you know, there's the big shootout climax and everything and it's, you're just waiting for it to happen because you know where it's heading, you know what's going to happen. And there's supposed to be some kind of like a special

moment shared between the detective when she's like, all right, I'm going to let you guys do your thing, you know, I'm going to escort the other cops out of here so that you can revive him or whatever. Yeah. It comes together so poorly, all the elements from the mob stuff, the investigation, who this character was before she was possessed. I mean, I feel like this movie

would have worked so much better if it was more of a faithful retelling of the bride of Frankenstein, or not even more faithful, but let's just say it was set in that time period, you know, it was set in the early 1800s. Yeah. It wanted to give the bride

the bride, a little more agency or something to do. And like, that'd be, that'd be wonderful. Setting it in the 1920s, again, it just, it really doesn't have any place there. Yeah, I never understood why. They wanted the aesthetic, obviously. I think so. They just wanted the fucking aesthetic and didn't earn it and didn't have any reason. This looks cool.

Make a steampunk version. I know. I love how jarring it is. And it's like, okay, he possesses her body. Great, that's the intro. And then, oh, here's Frankenstein. Just walking around hanging out in Chicago for the 1920s. He has like a little mask on.

And he's talking to Annette Benning. And she's like, I know you. Oh, that's great. I've heard all about it. I'm like, what the fuck? Like, what is it? It just, is it supposed to be funny? Is it supposed to be like quirky?

And it's not supposed to be, again, look, we can go in circles around. Who is this for? Why? It's just a mishmash of elements and a fever dream that like, you know what? Props to Maggie Jelenhall for putting something out there that has not been done before, you know? She should have put her name in front of the title. I think why not? The Maggie Jeline Hall's the bride.

It should have just been the motherfucking bride. Yeah, honestly. That's what they wanted it to be. Yeah. And there's like maximalist trailers. I saw 50 times before seeing this. That seemed it was going to be like an extreme. This might actually work because it's like so kind of self-wearing over the top

or this is going to trip a full flout on its face. And you mentioning elements like the whole mob side of it and then just remembering how it all kind of like mechanically fits together and like builds up to that ending sequence and how like just like random everything is like for it to work. Like the way these characters are tracking each other and just these weird coincidences of like just, oh, we're just going to leave the door open to like the lab at the end

so that all the cops can come in. And it's just, yeah, I think so convenient and like, almost like it resents the genres it's playing in. Like the whole like, oh, this is a cat and mouse, like mystery. We're seeing both sides of it, but we're seeing the detectives try and follow the clues and solve this weird case with these monsters. And there's also the, like, relationship side.

It's not really interested in the love angle all the like noir stuff or any of it. So I am just left like what? Like God, I wish I could be like a fly on the wall to like the, the boardrooms like talking about like this is the plan for this, right? And this sequence is going to be incredible and they're going to be blown away and like just the pitch of this. Like them talking about it. It's like, oh yeah, this is going to connect really well with that. I don't know.

Yeah, absolutely. And did you guys see John Maloney's. When he hosted the governor's awards, I think this was like two years ago or something. But he mentioned the bride briefly. And like all I had known about it at that point was he was basically making fun of how he was asked to audition for a small role in that film. Like, I don't know. I'll send you guys the clip. But it was funny because he was just like, wow, I get to play young cop in Maggie Jillenhall's reimagining of Frankenstein's bride.

Like, I don't know. I'll find it. excited to you. I do want to point out there's there's atrocious audio editing in this film like several times there'll be like a scream but it's like two takes that they tried to like cross fade sneakily into one where it's like there's there's so many ways around that there's so many ways around that right like one of them just obviously being like I don't know just take one scream to go over the two shots. You don't need you don't need to bookend with two separate screams just because you did a cut, right?

And like it happened, it happened too many times. Atrocious editing in general, but yeah, the audio editing is like, it's not that often where I should be able to be annoyed by the audio editing in a film. Yeah, no, it blew my mind in a way where I was almost at first questioning. Is this like an intentional, like, choice? Like, they're trying to be, like, going out the bounds here or something? Like, it's so, there's something so shoddy about it that you almost can't believe how, like, bad it is

for the amount of, like, talent and resources put into it, really. Maggie Gyllenhaal's Suicide Squad. Yeah, it's a bit like Birds of Prey, too, kind of similar. Yeah, no, it's just very, it's very, It's very jokery and not any of the good interpretations. Yeah, the cringe joke. This is, I guess, like, a genre now. You got Corrella.

Jared Let's a joke. Right. Jared Letto spiritually was in this film. Yeah, it felt like it, really. He should have been in there. Christian Bale was wonky as fuck. He was just, hang out. Plenty of annoying moments with him.

The color grading, I didn't like the color palette in this film. I don't know what the fuck they wanted out of it. It's like a toilet. Is there anything you guys liked about this film? No. Nothing. No. That's tough. That's tough. I guess just the fact it was a swing, an original script, but yeah, that script ain't good, and the swing completely mess. I like seeing Annette Benning. I like Annette Benning. I mean, I normally like seeing Jesse Buckley and Christine Bale, too. I don't anymore. They're dead to me. They ruin, though.

Has bail gone in an Oscar? Yes, he has. He has two, no? Two? The fighter. Oh, yeah, the fighter. Okay. No, he has one.

I think he was nominated for, oh, yeah, he's been nominated for a few. I was thinking of American Hustle, and he's also been nominated for the Big Short and Vice. Must right. Yeah. Can I say something? Christian Bale, get a new agent, please.

What is going on? Yeah, I was just looking at his recent stuff. So, love and thunder, Amsterdam. Amsterdam. Yeah, that was rough. Mugli. It's his version of retirement is just not caring anymore. But then he puts on like 100 pounds to play Dick Cheney.

That's his, like, fetish, though. Yeah. That's for fun We need Stephen Spielberg We need Christopher Nolan to have him play Like Grover Cleveland You know and then he'll do it Yeah

If he asked a game in a bunch of weight he'll do it He's like a Nicocato Avocado type He's like he's really into the weight gain But in order to continue living the fantasy He needs to like lose weight again And then Yeah

He's got a good system down That can't be healthy No I don't know It's got to be really unhealthy He's probably shaving gears off his life doing that I love I love Christian Bale

I truly do I hope he's in some more great films They're remaking American Psycho And I truly I don't know how they're gonna do that I forgot that was a thing That's gonna be oh yeah but wait it's Luca Right yeah

It is Luca so that is one thing. Yeah, as long as it's different. They could get clavicular to play. Oh, God. Yeah, as long as it's different and weird. It, you know, like, I just, it might be a miss. It might be a miss.

After watching fucking, uh, what was his, Luca's newest one? Oh, oh, the Julia Roberts one. Yeah, yeah. The cancel culture one. I never saw that one. Yeah, no, that was fascinating. And that was definitely a miss after the hunt. That's it.

But it was, it was like, I still. liked it as like a enjoyable train wreck and it was still like really well shot and had some great performance moments in it for sure it was just like a terrible script and things didn't make sense and it was weird did you did you like queer loved it I loved it I still did you great film yeah it's um you know the that the like novel it's based off of or you know who wrote it at the very least yeah yeah Burroughs okay yeah just as long as as you know who Burroughs is, like, you're going to enjoy it, probably. Okay, cool.

If you think you would enjoy a Burroughs thing. I think I would. Yeah, it looks, I mean, all the trailers, it looks incredible. Everything that's great. It does looks fantastic. And Challenger's is so good. One of my favorites of the past few years. No Oscar Noms that year.

Two incredible movies in one year. No fucking Noms. Both of the soundtracks could have got, like, easily. Do they hate Italians? I don't know. Okay. Yes. I think there's some of prejudice there.

The Academy has like weird grievances some years apparently. I don't know. It doesn't make any sense. All right. Well, uh, bride ratings. Yeah, let's fuck this shit. Uh, two out of ten. Cool.

Yeah. One star. There's really nothing. When you asked to come up with something I liked about it, like I was really trying to think of something, but I just can't do it. Yeah, nothing. Okay. Um, I, yeah, I think I gave it three.

Three out of ten. Yeah. There we go. Thanks. Here comes the motherfucking wood star. Yeah, this was, yeah, this was just one of those, one of those times where we decided. Wait, whoa, wait. What?

Guys, I have a really good transition. Are you ready for this? Is it going to beat I have to pee? It's, no, well, you can do that. You can pee after this transition, but hear me out. All right, this is the transition. Maggie Jillon Hall. wanted this to be two lovers on the run movie

in the vein of Terrence Malick's Badlands, the film that he made prior to Days of Heaven, which is the next film we're talking about. I am losing my mind. That was smooth as butter. Thank you. Thank you.

In the comments, they'll praise me. I'm so tired. That was not, that was not, that did psychic damage, actually. Yeah, they're going to praise me. All right, you guys can be stumbled. No, sure. No, it's okay. People like, people like seeing me in pain, so like that's a part of my brand. It's good. It's good. I guess it's my wreck, huh? I recommended, don't you? I had a choice to make after the shenanigans of whatever happened last episode. Hold on. What shenanigans do you explain? I don't know if we want to get into

that. We'll just leave that hang out. I don't know. No, please, please. I would like to hear you talk about that. Okay. So we had so. The totally real tech issues. What? Right. I'm going to have to hold up my gun, actually, to you right now.

Wow. I'm going to be the American in this conversation. What the fuck? You got to tell me the truth because I'm like Sergeant Dokes over here going crazy. Like, what is the truth? Was it real? I think it was real. Did you force us to watch us?

ugly. Okay. Without you, why can do that to me? Okay. The thing is, it'd be way funnier. It'd be so much funnier if I said,

I faked the internet problems to force you guys to discuss it yourselves. You said it in the comments section, I think that's what Alex is. No, that's about you do, right? Yeah, yeah. So I,

on the letterbox, I put that because I thought it'd be funny and I figured everyone would think it's a joke, but then there were enough. I know it was a joke. Yeah, yeah. There were enough people who were like, Wow, actually that's kind of rude.

Some people were saying based king. I thought it was some 4D chess. Like, what? You're like the Thanos just planning this out. You just go as good. You know how I know that it was real? How'd you know? It's because a friend wouldn't do that to someone.

Exactly. I wouldn't do that to my buddies. I wouldn't do that. No, someone was like, okay, this is like, is he like mad at them or something to do such a thing? Like, this goes be a treat. I thought the movie was like a nice. Like, I was happy with it.

No, I thought it would be fun. You know, we love watching great cinema here, but also it's fun to watch some bad stuff. I actually was disappointed to not get to talk more about that film. But I legit did have like that problem. So no, we're all still getting along. It's okay. And I'm grateful. I'm very grateful to you, Alex, for recommending this film.

because I'm excited to talk about it. It's good I did lean this way then because there was a spite I was going to go for as a reflex. Right. It's tense. Since Jake wasn't there for Alex to hear his reaction to it, he just gave up on it.

He wanted to hear me suffer. You dodged the... You put it in the back pocket. Rebound. Okay. Yeah. It's like a. fucking hostage crisis.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So luckily, I go lots of things going on in my back pocket, so I'll put that on another time. We can de-escalate for now. This is a strategic game. This is like Death Note, you know?

It's like one of those shows where it's like a cat and mouse, like, ooh, how are they going to one up the other? Yeah. And there's like rules, dude. The thing is, I don't know what worse you guys could recommend than the Human Senepea trilogy. Okay. Nice.

I'm glad to have that. crown actually. I'm sure there's something. There's some goodies out there waiting, hiding. Well, the channel awesome was pretty bad. But don't, don't tempt me as a challenge, though, because that won't

go well. No, no, no, we're all good. You know what? I love you both very much, and I would never want to hurt you. I would never ever want to hurt you, please. Okay. Let's talk Days of Heaven. Yeah, we'll discuss that after Days of Heaven first.

Yeah, okay, so my rec was Terrence Malick's 1978 film, Days of Heaven. Yes. This was his third film, I think, I've seen of his. But he's one of his directors, whose reputation precedes him, even if you haven't seen his movies, he's known as a kind of thoughtful, quieter. He will leave the whole cast and crew waiting

while he's kind of focused in the corner looking at like a bird in filming that. on everyone else's time, contemplative. And I don't think we've ever actually had a Malik film have its own wreck on the show before, despite him coming up in passing and his influence being felt, especially in discussions like train dreams recently, which came up a lot. This one specifically Days of Heaven, I think, is broadly known as kind of like his masterpiece, I think, for a lot of people.

Yeah, kind of a brief 1916 setting film based on a couple of migrant workers who pretend to be siblings and wide up in this kind of elaborate love triangle with a wealthy grain farmer. And on paper that kind of sounds like something that wouldn't really be up my alley, but the presentational style and the editing and atmosphere vibe to this. movie is very much what I'm looking for from this kind of thing. It almost on its face is surprising that for how kind of like dreamy and loose and I keep I kept saying it described as a cinematic powwim with its kind of this isn't really like a character study necessarily is more of like a kind of mood piece or exploration of the atmosphere or a setting and not particularly traditional kind of like structure as far as like editing or how things come about. But yeah, with its 90 minute kind of brief runtime and that kind of looseness to the

way it's put together, you could almost anticipate this being one of those three-hour minimum kind of like, yeah, you're going to sit in this atmosphere and you're going to experience it. But part of what is interesting about the way this was put together was shot for a full year, and then meticulously tinkered with in editing for two more years. and I think something special was kind of discovered in their editing room with the way it came together um yeah I kind of loved every minute of this what about you guys because

it's my favorite of his three I've seen the more contemporary stuff I haven't got around to you Oh interesting What are the other two you've seen? Badlands and thin red line The other two I've seen from him Oh wow So you're really uh yeah his late stuff

is very different. Yeah, because that was one of the other things I found interesting about this movie was that he notably took, what, a two-decade break after finding the frustration of getting this together to be so, making so, like, downtrodden before he went back to Thin Red Line all those years later. I think he managed to capture something and kind of establish this style in a way that has stood the test of time.

and what he's I think he's like in line with Tarantino of only like nine films under his belt but each one seems to offer something it's funny I think I've seen the opposite ones for me really the more contemporary stuff the two that you've mentioned are like the ones I haven't seen and I know that they're supposed to be like some of his best I've just been like keeping him in my back pocket so I was happy that you recommend the days of heaven because I've been meaning to get around to it for a while so yeah my my experience with Malik is probably like a very different one. Well, not too different because, you know, the things that I come to expect of Malik are definitely in this film. But it, but it was like kind of a new experience for me

seeing that marriage of his style combined with something like the score from Ennio Morricone, who I also love. Yes. Like that was, that was something that was really special to me. Right. Compu. Which is not present in his later films. Not saying the music is bad in his later films, but, you know, Ennio Morricone is definitely like a strong voice in that category. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah, he's someone that I'll always, like, if he makes a feature, I'll watch it. And not all of them are going to stick with me as much as others.

But his cinematography is just so expressive that, you know, even if he makes a movie that's like, oh, didn't connect with the story that much, or, you know, a lot of his, his, uh, more recent films even like, oh, there's not even really a story. It's like, it's like a, almost like a dream or like a montage type film, right? But it's still like, oh, wow, you expressed something and I felt it through your camera work and I feel what you're expressing through the language of cinema. Like, he's really good at that. Like, I like him. Yeah, exceptional at that. Yeah. Yeah, it's the critical reaction to him over the years, been really fascinating. I can't think of a filmmaker who so quickly went from,

please more, we need more, Terrence Mallet. Come on, more, more, more, to suddenly, okay, a little less, that's fine. That's enough. That's enough. Do we need another, you know, poem about lovers standing behind curtains, you know, with the sun streaming in? Look at me. I'm jerking off, but this time it's in space. You know, what? Voyage of time. Oh, right. Yeah, that documentary. I have not seen that.

Yeah, he's done a lot of stuff. I mean, ever since really, like, the Tree of Life, he's kind of been nonstop until now when people are speculating still that his latest film about Jesus will be coming out. It's called The Way of the Wind. I guess they shot it in 2019. Still been editing it. So, like, his famously long editing process.

Yeah. they don't know when it's going to come out, I guess. Is that like about an airbender, right? It's about Jesus. It's like not the way of water is the way of wind. Oh, nice. Yeah, exactly. I think it's not the other avatar.

100%. I remember, so I was at Khan in 2019 when a Hidden Life premiered. I haven't seen that one. And the whole buzz about it was so funny because like everyone was saying like, oh yeah, it's great. but the exciting thing about it was he made a cohesive narrative story again that wasn't just like like a

yeah like a like a montage he made a he made another movie that's like not a montage movie whereas like there's a narrative there I'm like oh wow and that was like big news that was like that was the buzz at cotton for Malik yeah because outside a tree of life that's the only other one that really jumps out of me unless I'm being an idiot A hidden life, I mean. I mean, yeah, I still enjoy all of his other, like, weird expressive ones, honestly.

Like, if you haven't seen them, I'd say give him a shot. I know that there's a lot of people that are like, oh, come on, stop doing this. Right. But, like, if you like Malik, I think there's something to get out of them for sure. I fully agree with you. There's really nothing like them. And he is maybe one of the most, like, influential, like, stylistically of this, like, current crop of filmmakers.

Like, look at Chloe Zhao. And, like, there's no Chloe Zhao without. late period, Terence Malick, you know. And I think that the issue, I have a love-hate relationship with his late period. I absolutely love the tree of life. Like that was a huge deal when I watched it for the first time. I still think that's like a perfect movie. But then Night of Cups, you know, he did To the Wonder, Night of Cups, and then song to song.

I have a soft spot for song to song. I really like song to song. But throughout each of these films, there are times when I do feel like this, there's It's too loose to the point where we're kind of dwelling in visual cliches at times, you know, like there's a point when you're just filming in cool spaces and it starts to look a little bit like an American Express at, you know. Right. And I think that's also because, like, the cinematic language that he developed has become the language of advertising and everything, you know. It's beautiful and lyrical. and it's like that is no longer super experimental.

I don't know. Like it's almost like he's cursed by his own influence. And you can't really hold that against the movies themselves, I think. Like there are some really wonderful aspects to his late period. But for me, I always feel like my favorite period of him is like that early, you know, Badlands, Days of Heaven. Like those two films are just so wonderful. And I do wonder if that's an aspect of just like him developing his style or being a little more restrained at the time, you know. I also wonder if it has to do with like filming digitally.

But the thing is, I thought for some reason that Night of Cups and To the Wonder and these films were all shot digitally. But no, they were shot on film until Hidden Life. A Hidden Life was his first movie shot on digital. So I guess that wasn't something, because I know he shoots tons and tons of footage. So I thought, like, well, maybe his late period is a little loose and baggy because he's able to shoot so much more footage. He is able to shoot so much more footage, but not because of digital, but because I guess he probably just can afford to do that now. Anyways, even in the process of making this film, I had almost be down just to watch a documentary of the editing process of what it took to get the shape of something like this to where it gets, you know, with it being like 90 minutes, contrasted against how much. was shot.

Like it must have been hours and hours and hours and hours to give it that form. It's like that. I'm very intrigued by that process because for me this was like the right balance of it where it wasn't frustrating me with like kind of how loose it was and it had just the right amount of narration

to give it a bit of shape. But it also kept things kind of loose and kind of almost felt like improvised and naturalistic at times. It's 90 minutes. It's like short and sweet. Yeah, exactly. It just flies by.

Yeah. Like it, yeah, it doesn't linger for a second. It doesn't feel like it's wasting your time at all, but it all just feels like it's feeding into this kind of this cohesive atmosphere or, yeah, mood that it's showing off this. It's showing off the nature. That's one of the things I love about the films of his I've seen. This is almost like deterministic, like the way the stories take place in the worlds he creates where he is like so. Yeah, this is like an animal over here. This is nature.

This is the environment. This is just as much a part of the story. And it makes the perspective of the characters in the film quite interesting as like a contrast. It makes everything kind of feel like indifferent. Like nature's being indifferent to this and especially in settings like this with these kind of migrant workers and the kind of class stuff going on in the movie. Contrasted against that as this constant reminder. It's just like a really interesting way presenting a world that really kind of pulls me into it. And then like contrasted, well, I'm not contrasted.

complimented by this like golden hour shooting and just how much of a nightmare this would have been to like coordinate all these people and these big like sets with the trains and all the people in the costumes and everything and there is a scale to it and a nice variety to the environment with it being such like a big character seeing it in the snow seeing fire seeing these big lush fields of greenery and whatnot um it achieves a lot in a small amount of time despite its looseness. Yeah. Yeah.

No, this is the type of film. It was kind of fascinating watching it because it feels like by the end of it, it was a longer movie, not from how long it took to watch it, but based off of like how much it showed. Yeah. Like it had relatively quick editing for a movie where most of, not most, but a significant amount of the edits are fades. Like it was able to communicate such a strong sense of passage of time.

And to me, it didn't feel rushed, that's for sure. But it felt like bigger than it was and bigger than what was shown in an interesting way that didn't harm the experience, that's for sure. So you liked it, Adam? Yeah. No, I thought it was great. It's so funny. People fucking...

I'll be getting scared. Here's Alex's recommendation. Top comment. I can't stand when Adam is going to hate this and say because it's slow. It's like, I think I've liked every Malik film I've ever seen. Why do you... People like just preload themselves to get upset. I don't understand.

Do you know what it is? It's because people, when they were talking about a movie that, or you see a movie that people love, they're just preparing themselves for the possibility that you won't like it just to like steal themselves against the pain. It's a defense mechanism because it hurts. Yeah. I'm causing harm. No, I didn't doubt that you'd like this.

I figured you'd both would really like it. Yeah, no, it was great. Beautiful cinematography. Yeah. Which, I mean, yeah, I loved Malik. I was expecting as much. Yeah, I would definitely watch it again. And again, big, big on Ennio Morricone as well.

Great combo. Oh, something I'd like to point out about the score. So it opens with like a really old, I guess it's like a French song called Carnival of the Animals, the Aquarium by Camille Saint-Saintians. And I've heard it a billion places and I've kind of like. Yes, I'm wanted to find out what the hell that song was for so long

because there's something just so, there's something about it that feels so mysterious and beckoning and it's like inviting you in and loved that it incorporated that song in the film. But what was really interesting to me was the score by Ennio Morricone, although not evoking the same tone of that additional track, it followed along to a very, to almost an identical, like, rhythmic structure, but doing wildly different chords. So this would be, like, an example of something where,

I'm not going to say temp music, but I think that Ennio Morricone was instructed to listen to this other original track and use that as some kind of jumping off point for inspiration. And the chord progression that Ennio Morricone does is so dissonable. similar and also very unique and like atypical for like a chord structure. It's like kind of going all over the place. It's like boom, boom, boom, bam, bam, bam,

like things that like musically most people wouldn't write because it almost wouldn't make sense but somehow it works. And so yeah, most people aren't going to connect his score with that other track in that way because it's such a subtle thing. It's only the rhythmic structure. But I

I found that really, really fun and interesting. And that, yeah, that's my interpretation of... Can I share a little info about the music there? Sure, please. That I thought was interesting. So I've seen this movie a million times. I love it. And so I thought I would listen to the commentary track

from Criterion for this watch. Nice. It was really informative. It was from the editor, Billy Weber. It also included the art director, Jack Fisk. who's still working. He did art direction for Marty Supreme, costume designer Patricia Norris and the casting director, Diane Crittenden.

So they talked, I guess, for the music, they had temp tracks, yeah, on the film that were from other Morricone films. So they had Morricone temp tracks on there. And Morricone wrote the score for them, and he said, okay, you guys can move the score wherever you want. Move these pieces wherever you want, which they did. but he specified one scene he said you cannot move it you have to keep this music on this scene and it was the scene with the fire you see so he he demanded that his music be kept there but yeah so there was temp music that's cool yeah um but yeah i love i love morconi i love this music it fits really well and it i it fits this like circular feeling you know because you're going like

through the seasons. And, of course, there's a little love triangle. But it feels like so much time is passing very quickly, but you get a sense of progression. There's always a sense of progress. So it doesn't feel like you're just like nothing's happening, you know? Yeah, yeah. It's all this beautiful nature.

But it's like things move along at a pretty good pace. And the narration handles that really well. And another thing I thought was so interesting about how they captured the the narration. I guess that was one of the hardest things to capture with this film is that they were trying to get like, you know, when do we need a line here? When do we need this? So they'd have Linda who, I guess Linda Mann, who plays the little girl and does the narration, they'd have her try different lines. They'd record one line and then they'd just watch the movie and place it in one place and then do it in another place just to see if it changes anything. And then they would have her like

write her own narration at some points. So there are parts of the movie where they would would play a scene for her. And then they'd say, okay, now Linda, describe what happened in that scene to us, in your own words. And she would. And then that would be the narration for it. Oh, interesting.

That's kind of a nice way doing it. Yeah. Yeah, there was a ton of experimentation. So, yeah, it did take so fucking long for them to edit this movie because they were trying all these things. And apparently the script, they kept talking about the people who were doing the commentary.

They were like, we love the script. The script is so wonderful. He cuts so much of the script. script and dialogue out of every scene. He was just trying to cut as much dialogue as possible and just focus on the images. And they're like, I think he just wants to make a silent movie. That's what they were saying the whole time. They're like, yeah, he just wants to do a silent movie. He keeps cutting his great dialogue. And it works so well ultimately. And another one of the challenges, or I guess one of the things that made it so that they could spend so much time

editing this movie and why Paramount wasn't paying attention to them, it was because Because another movie we just watched, Sorcerer was being produced around the same time. That was so expensive. And that was taking all their time. There's a little movie that these people were shooting up in Canada and editing. They were just like, yeah, whatever, do what you want. So they literally cited in the commentary. They were like, yeah, thankfully Sorcerer was like everyone's headache.

So they didn't really care what we were doing. That's interesting. because yeah there's something about how understated the film is that I really connect with despite it being able to show off surprising scale at certain points like involving helicopters and yeah you mention like the fire and the like the biblical stuff with the locus and that kind of stuff but it's some of those like smaller moments like we mentioned this love triangle and I guess I guess spoilers for the film from the 70s for days of heaven. But when the when the rich farmer is at the top of the tower by

that kind of fan that is spinning and making that noise and making this kind of really uncomfortable soundscape as the moment that he spots the main character's like kissing and it all kind of like is revealed to him. It's the execution of that like the confidence in that, the way that came together how much of a like memorable moment it is despite what actually is on its face. Like it's so it's so simple but it's just that execution of that makes it so punchy and powerful. And yeah, there's a looseness to what we're being shown, but there is a growing tension throughout the movie.

And they're with this couple kind of like taking risks and like, oh, you can't show affection here and someone might spot us. And just where that goes, I found to be like a great hook that gave it some glue to stop it from getting too kind of like scatterbrained or just pure atmosphere with nothing else kind of. No, there's murder in this movie. I mean, it's like murder in action and a chase. Yeah.

It's just not the primary focus. Or it's filtered through all these images of nature and the most gorgeous cinematography you'll see. You know, like you were saying, Alex, I think that's important to like note about like Malik's whole worldview and what he does in his films is that he kind of like equalizes everything. Like all this drama and everything, it's on the same stage as these little chickens that are wandering around

or the bugs in the field. you know like it's all of equal importance um and uh yeah if once if you can get into tune with that and this movie does it so well of getting you into this dreamlike world and i think also part of that too and is super important to why this movie works is because it's a period piece i do think that his movies in general help when they're period pieces because like our brains can kind of go like yeah this is old times you know like the thin red line and the new world i think work in better than so many ways than like, you know, song to song, which just takes place in Austin, Texas, you know, like in the modern day, it's, you know, maybe years and years from now

we'll have a better appreciation of those films or it'll feel more like in tune with what we like to see from Malik. But I think part of that like separation and being able to sink into the dream world is, is important where characters aren't, you know, their actions and consequences aren't as important as necessarily like the visual motifs and everything. And, you know, one of the things that I have to mention that is, like, so special and unique about this film is that, like, they were worried. Like, everyone working on this movie was terrified. And apparently, like, their Hollywood crew, the camera guys and the sound people and everything, they hated Terrence Malick when they were working. It was really just Terrence Malick and his cinematographer, Nestor Almenendros, who worked on half of the film.

And then Haskell Wexler came in. But he was just kind of working with his cinematographers. Nestra al-Mendra said that his job on the set was just kind of like lending some validity to Terrence Malick's insanity because he said that Malik knew exactly how much light would work and how much light they needed because literally every day they were saying like this is not enough light that was every like scene it's like shot on golden hour everything's backlit like it's very very low light movie and they were really pushing. like the film negative to be able to capture anything. They were like, they were terrified that there just would be nothing visible.

So it was like really revolutionary and changed cinematography in like a huge way. So that's fascinating. That's cool. And they were shooting based on weather conditions, right? Like that's, like they were timing it around that

in a very like, I don't know, the number crunches must have been so I'd be stressed if I was like come oh stop stop filming that butterfly we got like yes we got deadlines to hit over here exactly I'm pretty sure it went over deadline over budget I think that's another thing of why I think this movie feels tighter than his later films is that they're apparently they just did not have the same amount of time and ability to shoot everything they wanted to like there were pretty short takes of everything so it's like if I imagine there was a lot more planning to be able to get what they they needed um You know, it's not like he's, he's not yet at the level in this age in his career where he can just like go wander off from set with his cinematography and shoot whatever he wants while all the actors and stars are waiting around. Yeah. I want to point out, the girl says here, goosy, goosey, that's not a fucking goose. That's like a pheasant. Okay.

Okay. She's an idiot. I didn't catch that. I'm going to take a star off. It's not a goose. Do you have an issue with the working glass Or is this like Issue with what?

Do you think poor people are gross or what are you saying? Oh, wow. How did this become a classic? I was being sexist. Oh, sorry, I'm so sorry. You're not classist, you're sexist. Yes. No, I'm a trans exclusive radical misogynist.

Oh, okay. Well, bro. Days of Heaven would bring that out Yeah, well It's not a goose It's not a goose It's my Canadian pride Okay

Is a pheasant Is this movie too woke? That's what we want to know Finally Can that just be a recurring like segment For every film we talk about Like the The woke segment

You know Oh yeah We could spin the woke wheel or something Yeah Give it like a rating of 100. Can I praise Sam Shepard for a moment? He's the great playwright.

Actor, I love seeing him in movies. He just has this authenticity to him. That's great. Richard Geer is great in this movie. But Sam Shepard is so... He lends... Apparently, the character that he was playing was supposed to be like an older guy,

just like this guy owning the place or whatever. But they... And with Sam Shepard... Shepard there, you're kind of like more like, hey, maybe she does love him. Maybe she does want to be with him. Maybe this is a better choice for her life, you know? If it was just some like old dude, then you're just kind of like, yeah, they're using him or whatever. But in this case, it feels like you feel bad for him, you know? Yeah, he brought way more complexity to that character or just that situation because like love triangles for me, he can be so, so frustrating as like a

trope. I like the way it was kind of used here. It was explained with the time period and it, yeah, being more about like the kind of class dynamics and the poverty angle. Yeah, no, I, um, I always thought, well, no, I didn't always think it clicked with me that you would be a Malik enjoyer, Alex, because a lot of the other films that you seem to enjoy are very Maliky, like, um, yeah, like perfect days, you know, or like, um, um, Twain Dweems and Paris, Texas I love as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's definitely a vibe.

And he does it so well. Very patient, very, like, meditative. And then just having so much visual beauty to chew on throughout the entire experience. Yeah. Feels like thoughtful and contemplated. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. There were a lot of teeth in this movie.

It was a very toothy movie. What? Anybody notice that? A toothy time. Sam Shepard has some messed up teeth. People are showing their teeth a lot. They have real teeth. That's what I miss.

Actors have real fucking teeth. I actually agree. Yeah. And people are like grubby. Everyone's like Covenant Filts. Especially if you're doing a fucking period piece. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Oh yeah. Everybody has all this dental work and bleaching their teeth. All of veneers. Perfect vanillas, yeah Yeah Might as well have like fucking grills You know Like

Anyway The fire The fire shot Looked fantastic That's real fucking fire Watching it Yeah No that's

That's what was kind of Crazy about it Was watching it I was like Is this safe? Well Yeah it seems super unsafe It's like

An animal Running through the fire At one point I'll tell you guys there was, I guess they fired the special effects dude, the guy who fired the fire guy. They fired the fire guy. Because it went, it did go out of control and it was very dangerous. We got a good shot. The first day. But the other days, it was the 70s, man. It was the 70s. No, it's funny because

they're watching the commentary, these old farts, you know, they're watching their work that they did in the 70s. And there's a shot of, you know, one of the grasshoppers on a blade of wheat. And they're like, wow, the shot is really great. And they're like, yeah, you know, we just glued them onto it so that they'd stay on the wheat. And the guy's like, did you have any issues with the animal folks? He was like, what animal? Exactly. Like, what are you talking about?

Every time I saw a horse in this film, I was like, yeah, it's probably not good. So although great images come out of that, it is like it's not the best thing to romanticize that period of film. Of course, yeah. People kind of just had a fuck it mentality. But yeah, the fire went out of control. They had to pour diesel fuel on the wheat. So they bought like strips of wheat from the farmers or whatever. And they'd have to pour fuel on it because they'd film at night.

And it wouldn't catch on fire because it was super damp and humid. So they just pour gasoline on it. Can you tell me, if they mentioned in the commentary track, I was kind of curious about one of the shots with the locusts. Did they like reverse like fall in dirt or something? It was like shells. It was some type of like peanut shells or something. Yeah, I thought that was incredible the way that looked.

Yeah, reversed fall. Yeah, really cool effect and then just like overlay or composite. That's scrappy. That's inventive. What a great way of pulling that off. Yeah, I know. It's it's there's a kind of frightening feeling to it as you're witnessing it. Yeah.

Like what the, It's iconic. Yeah, incredible. Yeah, incredible. The special images in this movie. As is the main house as well. It's like on the poster. It's the shape of it and the way they return to it as kind of like a character in and of itself.

I really love it. Yeah, I mean, everything is built and made there on set. It's, yeah, it's really looks fantastic. And I love the little biplanes like I'm flying in, you know, the little. random people that come in to perform. What are they? There's some kind of like vaudeville people, right? Yeah.

Yeah, wonderful. Like a sky circus or something wild like that. Yeah. So in the background during this discussion, I've been finding something that I'm so glad is archived. But, but, but, when I hear Terence Malick, I often think of a now inactive Twitter account ran by someone role playing as Michelle Hanukkah.

Okay. In a very silly way. And I'm very glad that the account still exists, like it's not deleted. if you go to it, it's Michael underscore Hanakey, you know, just have his name is spelled on Twitter or whatever. And you can search just the word Malik, and there's a lot of funny shit. I think I might know what you're talking about. Oh, yeah, it was this weird thing that existed in like 2013, 2014. And he would like live tweet sometimes like if it was like the day of the Oscars or something,

you would be like, somebody just farted next to me. I'm not going to say who, but he directed Tree of Life. Here's one that I just pulled up. And it's always spelled like just cringy, like internet, like 13-year-old girl, MySpace 2007 speak. So here's one. Quote, I sorry, but I can't come because I'm too busy staring and crying at least.

Quote, Terrans Malik, every time I done ask him to go drinking, lull. it just like I don't know some of these are great did you know Terence Malick got Lifting me ban from KFC for try and pay for Zingerberger with Leafs it's what inspired thin red lines lol yeah yeah here's another one quote I'm a cut you out me film and replace you with a Leafs quote what Terence Malick says when he's mad even if you never worked on his film lull. So true.

And it was just like, yeah, you know, like an auturred director, a Twitter, parody Twitter account that I was calling. And it is like fucking description, like hashtag cat fart. Talked about his cat's farts and like half the tweets. And I was just following this shit. It existed for like a couple of years or whatever. It was so, it was funny to me because obviously, you know, the juxtaposition. That's the thing about like the Malik memes in particular.

though where it's like, it makes me like him more, whereas like the Snyder kind of memes are like at his expense. Like the reason, the things people parody and kind of poke at with Malika, exactly why I like his films. I mean, yeah, it's like, it's trying, it's the same thing as, is mocking Wes Anderson for his style.

Like, you're just describing their style. Like, you're describing the types of things that they do in an exaggerative way. Here's one. I heard Terrans Malik is cutting all the actors out of his new movie and replacing them with shots of slugs. Can't Wait, Loll. Hashtag Tee Manich. It's like there's a weird writer. It's kind of a Werner-Hutzold thing where it's like so kind of sincere and parody, but the personality just comes through. I love that we just have no concept or idea of what his personality is actually like because he's so out of the limelight, you know. There's just such little footage of him. Yeah.

Yeah, those are always interesting. It would be, yeah, it's interesting to like have a job as an artist without like being like a part of the traditional or more common, you know, like interview process sort of thing or like sharing much of your personal life in that way. Yeah, especially when like, what, after this taking a 20 year break, I kept thinking about that. Like, what was he doing in those 20 years? What was he keeping himself busy with? Gooning. That's a long time. Yeah, in the commentary track, his collaborators, people work on films with him still.

You know, they talked about it. And they were like, you know, do you guys know what he was up to in those 20 years? And they were like, yeah, he was just working. Like he's a workaholic. That's what they say about him. Working on what? Like a tinkero. Say, yeah, he was just writing.

You know, he's writing, working on films. Like, He, Days of Heaven wasn't a huge box office smash, but it was like, well, regarded. And the studio likes Terrence Malick, and they were like, we will make whatever you want. And then he just kind of got sidetracked or he was working on ideas and stuff. And I think a lot of those probably became the tree of life. But I just think he's the type of artist who doesn't really make something unless he knows exactly what he wants to do and how to do it. So I don't think it was like, I'm sick of heart. Hollywood. I can't deal with this bullshit. I think it was like, all right, I have a bit of time. I need

some time to figure out what I'm doing next. So I don't know. I'd be interested to learn more about it. But I do like how even at the time there was apparently like an air of mystery about like one of the people in the commentary tracks that like, yeah, I heard that he's working at like a bagel place in France or he's like, you know, he's a waiter at a restaurant. Well, yeah, because like, like, 20 years is like a long time to like support yourself. Like, and he's not doing like a one for them, one for me like situation.

It's not like Days of Heaven was like Oppenheimer, making billions or whatever. Like, yeah. I heard he got hit by three zebras and a monkey. What am I missing? That reference is for not you guys, apparently. That's fine. Yeah, I didn't catch that one.

I can't stand the bitch nowhere. All right, move on. Whatever. I don't even give a shit. I think Adam is having a stroke. Someone in the audience will know. You know, that's, I, there is a part of me that that still enjoys being able to make jokes that are maybe not for many people, but it means that the people that get the jokes, it means more to them. The Blood Brothers, yeah.

We're too normally for you now. Yeah. I, I, I don't know. I don't think, that's, well, I'll just read the comment. after. Yeah. Okay. I trust you.

It'd be funny if like all the comments are just like, we have no idea what Adam was talking about there. No, people will get that one. Yeah. Yeah, it's a shame. Adam hated Days of Heaven. What the hell, man. Yeah.

Hate with an emphasis on the eight. Mm-hmm. So true. He hates women. He hates Days of Heaven in that order. Yeah, I would watch it again for sure I would love to check out the other early Malik's There's really one other

Just one other Well yeah but I still haven't seen Like thin red line also That's his big comeback yeah Yeah So I still consider that to be early Malik I just guess I guess not early early Not double early

That's after his break Not double early Yeah yeah Because the thin red line has like hilarious fucking you know part of part of the reason why he's notorious for the editing of his films is I believe that's the one where actors thought that they were the lead and then were like cut out yeah and they only found out when they watched the movie it's like what literally it was like Adrian Brody or something yeah it was Adrian Brody he was cut out yeah I thought I was

the lead what the fuck I went to watch this movie that I thought I was starring in and it's still three hours long and I'm like not in it or I'm in it for like one scene. Yeah. It's kind of funny. I really like that movie. That's a really cool, um, unique war movie for sure, especially that what we're saying about the environment and the way it's like juxtaposed or entangled with the story. Like it's really interesting in that movie as it is here too. When you have like such a tactile, tangible kind of like setting, it just really works well as it does here, the kind of farming stuff. Yeah, this is probably my favorite film I've seen of his. I'm looking forward to catching up to some of the more contemporary stuff in due time.

I can see that influence. It definitely speaks to me. It's not really much I'd critique about this movie. Maybe just the some janky audio here and there. Nothing too wild. But for me, this would be a really strong four and a half stars. This is what I'm looking for from film. Hell yeah.

It's interesting because I think, you know, we were having conversations about some, like, older films before and the level of, like, what types of things you attribute to just being like, oh, that's from the time period, whatever, they were doing their best in most movies like that or like that. Audio, the type of audio that is in this film, I would consider, like, personally, along those lines. Like, if I see a movie from the 70s, then it's like, okay, I can tell this is dubbed in that the lips aren't. matched perfectly. Even though there are examples where like they go above and beyond from the time period where it's like, okay, wow, like you can't even tell. But the expectation for me is like a movie from the 70s

is like that's what I'm saying. And it doesn't like ruin it. It's like a part of the style for me. And I find that interesting because we were having that conversation about Night of the Hunter, just different aspects. Yeah, yeah. No, I feel similarly. Like I notice it, but it isn't necessarily like a criticism.

It's just kind of like there. 8 out of 10 from me. Loved it. I always wondered what a, if wheat was a film. Bread. Bread. This is a bread movie. Oh my God.

Bringing it all back home. Nice. That was why I felt compelled. Yeah. I was beckoned. Days of bread. That was good. Well, I'm glad you liked it.

If there was no wheat, it'd be like a five out of town. Yeah. If it was corn, yeah, thumbs down. Ew. Ew. The corn industry is like the representation of everything wrong with America. You subsidize it and give it to like your fucking livestock. What the fuck?

You use it as sugar. You're like, no, no sugar, please. I want high fructose corn syrup and everything and all my service. I'm pretty sure that's going on in Canada too. Not really. Not to that extent. When they say Mexican cola, what they actually mean is cola from every. anywhere outside of the United States.

Like our sodas have like, you know, fructose glucose, but not, you know, high fructose corn syrup. Like, it's an entirely different thing. It's like cane sugar derived, I think. You know what we have, though? Freedom. We have freedom. You don't drink in your corn?

I bet you'd like to know what that's like. Yeah. 10 out of 10 for Days of Heaven. Perfect movie. Alex, you've been recommended. just like my favorite movies of all time so please get down yeah I gotta break the streak soon get some revenge you know do you want to just pass it off to me I could I think is you'll you'll wreck yeah that's very nice we got questions first no yeah yeah let's do some

questions first getting ahead of ourselves um you all had a big turk what I'm just eating a big turk did you just say something about big turk actually I'm eating a big turk mini which just makes it a turk I guess what the fuck so it's a fucking chocolate thing it's like turkish delight covered in chocolate. Oh, I thought you were like holding a giant turkey leg, like knowing of my god. I've done that before too of it, you know. You don't call those a big talk? Because that would be fitting. That would be great. Yeah, I know. I would call like the American, oh my God, if you're ever at like a Disney prop, like Disney World and they have the fucking, like, oh, you can get a turkey, like, those are big turks. Yeah, that's what was picturing.

There's something wrong with like the entire food industry in America. where you go there and it's like, oh, they've genetically modified all these animals to be freakishly large. And for some reason, they're not in other countries and you have to assume it's because of some health and safety standard. They inject them of like water or something. Fuck, I don't know. And RFK is like, we need to ban Tylenol. Damn, yeah. Looking at pictures of big Turk, I'm not sure how I feel about this.

I'm not really into the Turkish to like kind of situational. Yeah, no, it's a niche thing. I wouldn't recommend it to everybody, but... Yeah, yeah. I like it as a little snack. It might be, like, even a bad texture thing for people, but... Oh, damn. What are we talking about?

Sorry, what? Did I hear, Jake? Yeah, I'm here. Oh, sorry. Oh, yeah. There we go. I've been here. Just listening to the Big Turk discussion.

I've been listening. Okay. There's nothing to add, though, so it's like... I don't. You know, sometimes you just got to sit back and be quiet, you know, Idris Elba meme type of shit. Idris Elba has a meme that says you got to sit back and be quiet. Maybe I haven't seen it.

Oh, my God. You're such a boomer. Oh, I'm such a boomer. Okay, boomer. You boomer's ready for some questions? Hold on. I got to show this meme to have. Yeah, no, I'm looking it up.

No, no, I'm sending it. Learn to sit back and observe not everything needs a reaction. This is like when you didn't know the avatar memes. Okay. I just sent it to you. There you know. Yeah, well, fuck. Okay, yeah. For every, every meme that you guys know that I don't know,

I know like six weird fetishes, okay? You say that with pride. I know so many subculture lingoes. You do. I speak to the weirdos everywhere. You do. We're grateful for that. Yeah, and if we didn't have weirdos,

we would have nobody watching. We would have no lost on the truth. You know, praise be to the people that spend all their time watching YouTube. True. Mm-hmm. A bunch of freaks. Especially the ones with YouTube premium.

Oh, they're the best. Thank you. Question time? Yeah, let's do the questions then. From the Saldonikas community, head over to the suggestion thread over on the subreddit if you want to leave questions for future episodes, just like Matthew Meredith 1.

did who simply asks what are you jealous of about each other's countries um so we got to we got to rack our brains here i could get us going if you guys want to think for a little minute um go ahead if you got something i'll start with what am i jealous of canada space got lots of space over there nice nice wilderness we have more we got more i suppose that does apply to america too the space I don't know if you have more empty space. Actually, total space. No, we're the second largest land mass. But we have more.

No, you don't. We're counting the oceans, which we dominate. Just say it, and it's true. We have more total, and it's more spread out with less people inhabiting. We dominate the oceans. Okay. Okay, sure, yeah, Gulf of... I always feel safe in Canada.

I'll give Canada that. The safety aspect's quite nice. I think, yeah. That's nice to travel somewhere and feel safe. Um, I'm jealous of America. Just have a ridiculously powerful. You are as a country?

I'm saying you, is it you are the monolith America, Jake right now? You're like, are the country. Jake's wielding a lot of power. Yeah. Yeah. So much power where like every choice has a downstream effect on the entire world.

That's quite. I don't know if I'm jealous of that, but I guess someone has to have that at some point. And so you guys You're jealous that America is destroying the world I'm jealous that like The pasturing Where everyone's like

We're all like watching you with bait of breath You know There's nothing we can do It's nice to hold all the cards It's so great when a country can just You know Bullying everyone Disrespect the rule of law at every turn

And do whatever it wants And then you have to watch Like the Prime Minister of England Being like well you know Maybe you know We'll see what happens They're just like beefing on Twitter basically, like every day. Like every article I read is just like Trump said some shit about Kirstama.

It's like, wow, this is really what we're doing now. Okay. Bring back Liz Truss, right? Yes. Finally some scents is being spoken. Bring back the lettuce. Okay, I have my compliments. Were you jealous of?

Please. Okay, things that I admire about your countries. Canada, Gordon Lightfoot was born on your soil, one of the greatest singer-songwriters of all time. Cool. So. Justin Bieber. Drake.

Shut. Okay. Right minute. You win some, you lose. I'm trying to be nice. All the ones that turn out to be shit, then people on the internet are like, oh yeah, you know they're Canadian, right?

But then the ones that are not shit, nobody mentions it. There's a lot of secret Canadians in the fucking entertainment industry Because they do successful enough in Canada, then they just start going where the money is, which is obviously American audiences and they just make American productions. Yeah, yeah. It's a pretty radical revolutionary thing for Matt Johnson to be so successful and continuing and insisting to make like Canadian films. Yeah, that is cool. Like that's a crazy thing for that to happen in our country and I love to see it.

And Louise as well. You got the late great Norm MacDonald. Yeah. You got Adam from YMS over there. Oh, thanks. You got Leonard Cohen. I mean, come on. You just search up a list.

Like, it's endless. It is endless. No, I love Canada. I mean. I didn't know what Donald was Canadian. That's cool. Canada's great. England, less nice things to say, you know.

We can take it. We got a sense of humor. You know what I'm saying? You have to. No, I mean, no, I think. I really like Ireland. Ireland is great. No, I love, I love the, I went to, I have only been to London once.

I would love to get a London. Yeah, London's London. Yeah, I, I liked it there. You guys have great vegan options. You like, you guys are super ahead. Yeah. in London, especially with the vegan food, it was like wonderful. So, yeah, there you go.

Probably, probably helped by the Indian population, I think. Really? Awesome Indian food here. Yeah, isn't there like a lot of vegan Indians? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay, cool.

Yeah, I thought that, yeah, I thought that was a thing. Did you answer that? No, I didn't know. What are you jealous of? I just wanted to see what Jake's was first. Yeah, yeah. I have to say real quick, for some reason, I still have the Google opened for the pictures of the Idris Elba meme reaction. And I found one that is the sit back and observe.

Not everything needs a reaction, but it is a picture of a horse wearing a suit. Oh, can you post that one? Sitting on its own giant testicles. Post it. There you go. Wait, what? And I just thought that if I did not mention that right now. You got to post it in there.

Yeah. It wouldn't be Sardonicest. Post it. Yeah. Maybe you'll recognize this meme, Adam, instead of the Idris. Oh, God. You know, I have seen that picture. Okay.

That's hilarious. That's great. Yeah. Wow. That's a good one, right? You know, it's not necessarily testicles. It could just be a brown. It's a very low-res image.

It could be a yoga ball that's an unfortunate color. That's true. Memes shouldn't be allowed to be high-res. The low-res they are is part of the humor. That's true. Okay. Alex, I have never been to the UK, but I feel jealous that you were like a hop-skipping a jump away from like other cooler countries. You know, you get to just like go.

All of Europe. Yeah, like France and Germany and like, you know, maybe your passport's not as strong as it used to be post-Brexit. But, you know, you're still like, it's. It's like if I wanted to go to Khan again, which I do at some point, the expense of that flight, you know, like, oh, so far. Oh, it's wild. It's like, you could just drive there from the UK. Yeah, I'd never actually done that, but yeah, there's a train that goes straight to the fronts. My road trip from Atlanta to Vancouver is probably like from London to like China.

I don't know. That was a long distance. Well, yeah, like my, my flight to Berlin was, what, two hours or something? Like two and a bit hours? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's a cool, a cool thing. Jake, I am very, very, very jealous that you get to vote in American elections.

It's not that great. Yeah. Well, no, it's... It feels pretty defeating, actually. Yeah. Well, it's, there is a frustration. that comes from not even being able to vote on the things they're... No, it's frustrating to know that my vote literally doesn't matter because I'm in Washington,

which votes blue to matter what. Literally fucking doesn't even matter. So there's like three states that determine the election. So yeah, it's great. Yeah. I love it. I'm jealous of the many, many different consumerist, options that you have.

Yeah, true. That is true. It's like your country is kind of like a playground for people with money. You know, I feel like the UK in America, we're just on the same track. I feel like the UK is just, you know, a couple decades ahead in terms of like empire and decline, you know what I mean? Just like accepting this new role in the world stage like the UK. I mean, we're giving up and just selling everything you own.

Right. Right. soon enough. It's just like there's a weird, like, insecure. I think it explains a lot of, like, the crazy, like, reactionary politics that our countries are going through. It's just like, oh, we're, you know,

what happens if we aren't, like, in control of the world, you know? Yeah. I'm also, you know, another thing I like about the states. I think, like, there's some, obviously, you know, cultural differences. But, like, there's some cool culture in the U.S. Like Atlanta's really cool. I loved Atlanta. I would love to go back there. Yeah, some really cool people. Yeah. Chicago's weird. I like how weird Chicago is. Like everything that makes Chicago Chicago is like,

we decided to do something so different and stick to it that no one else is sure if we're trolling. Like Mallort, like it's you, it's literally just to trick people. Like the weird ass hot dogs. Like some of them are cool. Culturally speaking, like the U.S. is fascinating. There's so much. Exactly. It's huge. I mean, there's so much going on.

There's so much many different pockets and places you can explore. It's wonderful. I mean, it's the same with the UK. I mean, the culture is just like you go to different area. And it's much smaller like landmass, but it's so old historically. There's so much history and it's so. Yeah. Yeah.

That is a thing. The UK objectively wins on. It's the history. Oh, of course. It's like you really feel it when you're in Canada and America. Like, I'm just used to shit being old, like hundreds and hundreds of years old. Yeah. These like castles and like just all this mixture of architecture and whatnot.

Just you guys feel like babies in comparison. Oh, babies. Yeah. Well, you probably drive by a castle like every day. I remember growing up, I'd like fantasize. Like, oh my God. Like that'd be so, like growing up in the suburbs in Phoenix, Arizona, just pavement and dust. Like anything older than like 50 years was like, holy shit.

it's an old building going to America is like you know going to the United States is like visiting 50 separate divided countries that are not united

I see it kind of like kind of like Europe in a way well each state is almost its own country really yeah there's just a bit more of like you'll speak the same language disagreements are pretty similar

the regions are I'd say the West Coast, like, you know, is generally pretty similar to other parts of the West Coast. But, you know, the East Coast is pretty different depending on where you're at. And then the South is its own, you know, topsy-turvy world. Yeah. Everything just seems like accentuated in America. Like, there's a lot of overlap with the UK. Sensationalized.

Yeah. But even just like things like the city versus small town kind of divide. Oh, yeah. Just like, that's a thing here for sure, but it's so accentuated in America. I think partially because of the geography, the space. Like, a small town here, like, the country's so small, you know, like, even the most remote place you're going to be, still not that far away from, like, a city of some type, normally, depending on where you're on the country. But some of these places in, like, America and Canada, you're, like, so remote.

You're so detached. It's almost like a more, like, tribal thing almost where, yeah, I don't even know how you, like, govern. that kind of like disconnect really oh the way you do it is you just give unequal weight to the people that vote yeah so that like you know is it the affirmative action for republicans is how you how you do uh electoral college best idea ever yeah it's uh i think land should be able to vote you know a lot of people here do they really think that um well because if you don't then you know You're allowing the majority of people to have tyranny with their voting power over the minority of people. You don't want New York to decide an election, even though that's where the people are.

You want the places where the people aren't to decide the elections. Because, you know, if somebody from New York became president, Trump, but somebody else, somebody else from New York became president, then they'd ignore all the places. places that are not New York. And that problem is solved by having the rural places elect presidents. Obviously, that solves the problem. And they're totally not ignoring other places. And it's not just something inherent from a person being born in a certain place.

Sorry. I can't. No, no. It's fine. I mean, it's stupid. We have a stupid system here. And I think. Tons of stupid systems everywhere.

Oh, that's the stupid systems everywhere. I think the US and Canada, and there are, similar in some ways in the in the sense of like you know uh dominating a landmass and um this idea of uh eternal free land you know free real estate forever and ever you know like that was kind of like the allure of uh you know north america of like let's just dominate and kill you know the native population and then we can have free land to kind of like um uh give uh give something to the people here so that we can, you know, take over. And I think like now we're at the end of that phase. Like there's no longer this unlimited expansion in in the states. And what do we do now?

We just buy, buy, buy stuff. You know, that's, we get our goodies. We get our, our, our, our cheap shit. But how much longer will that last? You know, I don't know. Could I have your goodies. Anyways. I'm issuing a correction. So Canadian sodas often do include high fructose corn syrup. but to differing degrees. Oh, not so perfect. Are you over there, Mr. Canada. Not so free of colon, are you?

Yeah, I don't really drink soda. Glucose fructose, which combines sucrose and high fructose corn syrup. So it's like a combo. So it's like not as much. What part of Canada is like the Texas of Canada? Where you tell us? Alberta. Alberta.

They're snow cowboys. Nice. I'm not kidding. It's crazy. If I could go to like one of the airports, you might see somebody in a cowboy hat and go like, what? Excuse me? That's so funny.

Oh, it's so funny. It's hilarious. Justin Trudeau and Katie Perry are together now. I'm so happy for them. Yeah. She kissed a prime minister and she liked it. Yeah. Oh yeah.

Okay. I kissed a Canadian and I liked it. We have more questions, Alex. Okay, let's do this one then. I'm seeing so along similar lines from Indigo, Valeria. With politics coming up more frequently, I'm curious about your thoughts on how capitalism affects the film industry. Because of the huge amounts of money invested,

studios favor risk-averse projects like franchises and sequels. They stifled creativity by avoiding politically sensitive topics that could be problematic in international markets like China. They seem to greenlight projects purely based on subscriber growth and engagement metrics for their streaming platforms. As mergers continue to monopolize the market, it's become harder for filmmakers to compete, especially when you look at the labor exploitations

that go on in the writers and VFX industries, what do you think can be done to change this? Are there any policy proposals you would like to see implemented? What? It's a bit of a natural extension, I guess, of what we're talking about. I don't know, like ever since the Wuthering Heights thing got my brain worrying about like, I don't know, I feel like art subsidies and sort of like government support is a huge thing. That is like a practical step forward, I feel like in making a difference.

You need to do something to counteract or like massage your own local workforce instead of importing cheap labor or exporting at all. you need to protect certain sectors like Canada does it right it's why a lot of stuff is shot in Toronto or London too there are a lot of subsidies and tax rebates in certain like VFX sectors or even the complete kind of inverse kind of philosophy if you don't want to be like France or Canada

even like South Korea places like that are investing a lot into Yeah. Subsidizing basically because it kind of loops back around at a certain point and you you generate billions of dollars, you know, like you create something that represents your country in like a positive way and it just enriches everything. Like look at demon hunters. There's lots of stuff like that depending on the country, but it's more like what you want

to target. And that seems like an actual like productive way of doing it that gets results. otherwise it's what? You just leave it to just a smaller and smaller group of already rich people to just do everything and it's just like the same thing

represented over and over again and I don't know something needs to shift with it right? Like it sounds sustainable at some point, you know? Like it always comes back to this these like outsourced VFX companies and just trying to slash

the bottom line up against the the ballooning budgets that these films seem to have. I don't know. Yeah. It just doesn't seem like sustainable long term. I agree. I just like,

I don't know where exactly the solution is. I think what you're suggesting is helpful. But I mean, like, yeah, my surefire thing for me, at least, what I consider to be helpful, is just try to try our best to like, guide some kind of cultural shift so that audience members are seeking out smaller projects, right? And more, you know, like artists that can prove themselves even without those gigantic budgets.

And, you know, every once in a while we do get kind of shot in the foot with that as a concept because, you know, sometimes people make it. And then they're like, oh, yeah, okay, we'll give you, we'll let you do whatever you want. And then it's like a big flaw, you know, like the bride or whatever. Where it's like, oh, damn, I guess you shouldn't have given them that money. But I think we need to just kind of like, not enforce, but encourage this idea, make it a common enough talking point that like, yeah, for every the bride, you know, there's other risk-taking autoture films where someone was given a chance, didn't have, you know, like either nepotism or favoritism or wasn't born into it and kind of like prove themselves. I was like, I don't know,

the backroom's movie seems like kind of an interesting thing coming out. Like some fucking like eight year old direct to the movie. Like 824. You know, he's got like an Oscar winning and Oscar nominated actor like starting in it. And it's like, oh, wow, like you're putting some faith. in this project, like that's kind of interesting. And yeah, like, you know, I, the more, the more that people are aware of and able to support different voices, I think that that in of itself does a good job at alleviating these issues in some ways, voting with your wallet, so to speak. Yeah, that does only so much to me when I think about like,

Speaking for my country anyway, the temperature I read is that like at a cultural level, there's almost like a hand wavy kind of, yeah, that's like a, it's not that important, like the arts really. Like something you do in your spare time, but it's not the Be All End or it's not the stock market. It's not the thing that's driving everything. So it's kind of over time, like educational policy anyway. So it's stripped away as far as that kind of stuff being supported or. massaged anyway, even though, I don't know, when you look through history, like, the art that comes from all these different periods of, like, support or people having a bit more, a bit less stress in their lives with, like, the balance of, like, the work-life balance and this kind of thing. So I don't know, there is almost like a philosophical kind of mindset thing, which is different depending on your country. Some countries, like, really value.

there are artistic output in certain fields more than others or their musical output, the painters, the musicians, whatever. I think I said that twice, but you get what I'm saying. Yeah. It's almost like people don't know how to see art otherwise outside of a lens of like this has to make money, hence why people always conflate like, oh, it's made all the money, hence it's good. Yeah. Even though it doesn't really add up like that. And I guess I should add like to, you know, even if we are to support. smaller artists.

Those are people that have found one way or another to get their project off the ground in the first place. And the more that we can do to support, you know, smaller artists being able to even start, which oftentimes does come from like government funding. The more we can do for that, the better, I think. More voices, more choices. Didn't even try to rhyme, but that's a good slogan. Yeah.

Yeah, more voices, more choices. More voices, more choices. Mm-hmm. I know, this sounds pretty woke at him. Yeah, well, I'm awake, so I've woken up. Yeah. I'm with you guys mostly on this topic. I mean, as you guys know, it's just like there needs to be better labor practices.

You know, film is a commercial art form, like the reason why there's any, all the protections, you know, and that labor union's one, you know, in like the 40s and, like, the 40s and. 50s and 60s, like all these things have just been whittled away over the decades by austerity politics. And now it's like, where are we? You know, and all of these things, they take a lot of fighting, you know, to make sure that people get health insurance. And like Hollywood is literally collapsing. You know, people cannot afford to work on these productions anymore. And it's going to come down to just building up a stronger labor movement. And I mean, Hollywood is just like one aspect of it. Obviously, it's like all these different industries. But, Just Hollywood is one example.

And I think also like when you have the stronger labor practices and also like there needs to be ways to, yeah, produce, put money, maybe publicly funded money into helping young filmmakers make things. You know, like we were talking about that. Alex, you talk so much about that with the, you know, your Wuthering Heights review. Like there needs to be ways for artists to break out. Evil dead. I think about, yeah, but I mean, like, we need, hopefully so that, here's the thing, there are bad, like, labor practices on low budget films. Like, notoriously, movies that have low budgets, they're skirt and costs, they're, you know, maybe they're not abusing the people on set, but, you know, they're working long hours and people aren't getting paid a lot. Shane Carruth was.

Glouing locusts to wheat. Yeah, yeah. So there needs to be ways that people can get a. start in this industry and yeah I think there needs to be some public funding there but also you know we also need to have a society in a country that values art and we just yeah not cultivated that and it's it's sad you know it's really a fucking disappointing but yeah I'm not hope I'm not hopeless on this like this is this is one thing that I'm like a bit of an optimist about I think that I think that there has been a shift in terms of like voice

where people are demanding more out of the films that they're watching, right? Like, I think that there is a sizable amount of people, enough so that industries see it as a market, like, as dollar signs, which is good, because, you know, that's a part of voting with your wallet, is letting them know, hey, I would like to see more interesting things by more interesting filmmakers. I don't want to watch the exact same movie every time, right? And with those people speaking their mind in public places, Twitter, whatever, you don't have to go on Twitter. I wouldn't recommend it.

But, you know, say wherever, you do see change. Like, the industry does pay attention to those places. Like, I guarantee you they do. And you made some interesting points about, you know, like worker's rights and labor practices. I've got a bit of a counterpoint. Deadline reports, Jonathan Majors fell through a window on Daily Wire Action Flick, leading crew to walk off set. Producers say, they, quote, don't negotiate with communists.

So, sounds like labor, no, this is real. I just posted the article in the chat. Isn't that funny? Sounds like labor practices is like a woke, weird, a thing that's for communists. I want to work on the anti-woke movie where people get injured and fall through windows. That sounds like amazing. Yeah, I want to have no rights, actually. Sounds like some communist bullshit.

Exactly. Fairly? Fuck that. Isn't that the funniest quote? It's like the people that are anti-building regulations and stuff like that. Oh, yeah. Remember when Dave Rubin pretended to like have that opinion on Joe Rogan and even Joe was like, You don't believe what you're saying and then he was never invited back on the show again ever

Because even Joe Rogan could tell he was a bullshit salesman like come on oh you're so bad at your job dave Are you so bad at it you had one job? That's your only job You couldn't even trick Joe Rogan dude that falls for the litter box in school shit dude that believes like literally anything has any one of his friends said about his friends wife's friends, friends, brothers, cousins, friends. Couldn't even trick Joe Roe. Yeah. Like is it, that's a, that should be like a metal of shame.

Yeah. I'm impressed, genuinely. I'm impressed. I think, is that the words? Yeah, sure. Yeah, you know, I have a conspiracy theory that I think is absolutely probably true. I believe, and I might have said this on the podcast before, I believe that the Western shift from 2D to 3D animation, sure, was propelled by Pixar and the success of Toy Story, but ultimately kept that way and encouraged to be that way because it is infinitely more common for 2D traditional animators to be unionized, whereas 3D animators are considered visual effects workers and are way less common to be unionized.

And that's why you hear all these horror stories throughout animation, you know, visual effects industries, 3D, 3D animation, all these fucking horror stories. They're all true. It's like they get they get overworked, crunched, often uncredited, you know, like not paid properly, given tons of extra work on like an extreme deadline without any extra pay. And these people are doing it because they just, they love. art they're artists right a lot of these people went to fucking art school because they wanted to do art and they're being exploited they're being absolutely fucking exploited by major companies vote with your wallet yeah there's normally some economic explanation for these things yeah but they don't negotiate with

communists so yeah I mean simple I would you I hope they keep him falling through a window in the film that would be cool It would be cool. That would be epic. This is especially easy to disagree when everyone you disagree with is a communist too in your mind. It's a very loose, versatile term. Yeah, it's kind of like just what you fancy. Yeah.

Yeah. Do you think the Jonathan Major's Daily Wire movie is going to get a higher or lower a Rotten Tomato score than the film Michael? Lower. Lower. I'm going to say higher. Yeah. Critics are, they're biased. They're biased against

Benny Benny Shippee Yeah, it's probably lower I'm out in Miami ho Don't worry about it Someone cool We'll get it in the comments I'm just

I would be so funny If like one of these days We do an episode where you just say Random shit and you're like Oh, it's a reference to a thing Oh, that's every episode And it's just like it was all None of it was a reference

It's just been losing a mind My mind is like a never-ending playlist of just sound bites. This just never fucking ends. There's no such thing as quiet in my head. You sound like you've been possessed by Mary Shelley when you say that. Yeah, no, I think so. I'm not even going to do an impression. I don't.

I don't have the heart for it today. It's too cringy. The energy is not with me. Well, do we have time for another question? I could do one more. Yeah. Don't do one more? Let's round this one down then with this one from,

do you want one from Yum Yum Pod or Hello, It's is Joe? I can't decide between these two. How many pick with his name, just the name? We can do a virtual coin flip unless you have strong feelings. Ooh, no, Jake, do you have a strong feeling? Yum, Yum Pod or Hello, it is Joe. Hello, it is Joe. Okay, that's what the coin flip said anyway, so fate decided.

And there's, oh, there's something serendipitous about that. Hello, it was Joe, so it's because Jake tried to escape the ugly discussion, what would each of your silly nicknames about how ugly you are be? Oh, yeah, everybody had a silly nickname. Yeah, you had like a nickname based on what you're known for being ugly for, I guess. So might be something like ginger, rhymes of ginger, ginger, ginger, something like that. Okay. Yeah.

Mine would be resting bitch face. And mine would be British teeth. Here we go. That was clean. I was quick, yeah. I think we can do the other one. Come on, what's the other one?

What's Joe? Yeah, sure, sure. Yeah, should we do that? For Yum Yum! Or, no, it was Yum Yum. Could you imagine having your name read and not your question? True. Yeah, that's right.

You'd be like, oh. Yeah. Okay, fine. Yum Yum Pod. You can get this one. We've started to see more directors and ones of note, like Darren Aronofsky and Stephen Soderberg, start to use AI and I was curious to hear you guys thoughts about this. Are there any directors you're expecting to embrace this? Also, are there ones of particular? You'd be disappointed if they did. Who pops into your head? The Soderberg thing was like a betrayal. That's like really disappointing.

Oh, what did Soderberg do again? I haven't seen that one. What was the context of him? Just kind of embracing it. It was a quote. He talked about like how he's embracing it. He said there's going to be a lot of AI in his upcoming work. What if he's talking about like the Steven Spielberg movie?

I hope he was, but I don't think so. It's going to be a lot of copies of that film secretly in the background. to my every shot. It's like the Superman in Seinfeld. I guess, yeah, we kind of need to start getting granular with the way we talk about this as far as filmmakers doing it.

Yeah, what is AI even? Yeah, what do you mean by AI? Do you specifically mean like generative stuff? Because that's like the big issue, to me anyway. I can see like a John Fevereux, like being all about that. You know, they're really like tech-focused, like filmmakers. maybe a James Cameron.

He's always talking about like, the next avatar is going to make $5 billion for us to even think about starting the next one. That would be a way to make it cheaper. He has talked about AI as like certain aspects of it as a tool to be able to make visual effects brush and move faster.

Yeah, yeah, there's things where it would make sense under certain contexts. But that's the thing is like when you collect it all under AI, then it's like any kind of, because there are things before AI that maybe now that if they were developed in the visual effects industry or whatever, we'd call it AI, you know? So it's like, yeah, like the crowd shots and like the Lord of the Rings trilogy. 100% like all these kind of procedural like minions like in a video game kind of. Like that doesn't seem like a,

I think that's pretty distinct away from that like procedural animation. I would say so too. But I mean, if something like that was developed now, I think people would, I don't think they would hesitate to be like, yeah, it's AI. Oh yeah, because it's all fucking marketing and weird. That's what I mean about the terms and like the way you describe, yeah, where that's, yeah, I don't know about that one. I think what I think is more sinister that I see a lot. Like Natasha Leon had a whole fallout issue debacle when she was like trying to, she's trying to produce some kind of like film, AI film or whatever. You know, Aronovsky kind of to another degree. But I think what we're going to see more and more of is a similar thing. And it's comparable to, I think, um, the fucking one of those

coin scam things that we had a few years ago. Cryptos, NFT. NFTs. NFTs. I think it's a very similar thing where it's like for a while you had Jimmy Fallon talking about NFTs. He has an NFT thing. Everyone has an NFT thing. And then it was like, oh, we're not doing that anymore. And I think there's, there's so much fucking money in AI and all the speculation there. It is literally the one thing keeping the U.S. economy afloat and growing. That's so, so much money that I think more and more you're just going to see celebrities coming out being like, actually, I think AI is the future. And we need to start using it smartly and all these things because they are, I'm sure, so many celebrities, so many directors are getting constantly hounded by their agents,

by managers being like, we need to take this deal with this AI company. This is the only job you're going to be getting in the future. Like, there's so much money that it's going to sway a ton of these big stars and celebrities. Your job is now to hype stocks. Yeah. Literally. Well, didn't, um, speaking of Joe Rogan, didn't like Ben Affleck go on it recently and talk about like this company he's made like a filmmaking company, but with an AI angle,

because that's the best way to get investment is like brand it as an AI, like media company. you're going to get more like luck with investment that way than like a film media company. Yeah, that's a weird kind of sad thing. Yeah, yeah, I forgot about that. That's annoying. It's going to collapse and when it does it's going to be fucking bad. Yeah, it's going to be funny. It's going to be funny and sad.

It's going to be funny until it affects the global supply chains. It's going to be funny until everyone gets laid off. It's going to be funny until I remember that I'm paid in U.S. dollars. Yeah. So, like, as long as my economy tanks worse, then I'm good. As long as my own country, I'm rooting against my own country's economy in comparison to the U.S. economy. Yeah. Wow.

In terms of answering the question, I will say that I was not surprised in the slightest that Derek Savage is embracing. AI. I was like, oh yeah, I could have seen that coming. Yeah, of course. We're all, I think we're all secretly hoping that Neil Breen doesn't, but I think there's some part of me that feels like like he probably won't, maybe. Or he would just use it in such a bizarre way. It would be like, whoa, you've like reinvented a way how to like use this. Yeah, maybe. Like, I don't No, no. He definitely is an artist with a vision, that's for sure. But he also, there are aspects where it seems like, you know, he's trying to go for the least money spending option. And so I guess that's the concern is if we get another tiger fighting scene, that it might not be

hand animated. Damn, that would be a shame. AI is ruining bad art. You know, like how many, how many people put so much effort into making fake Avengers leaked trailers. Fake Spider-Man trailers. There's so many of those. There's so many. They do shitty edits of Toby McGuire being like, I'm Spider-Man. That used to be an art, like on YouTube. They're like fake Men and Blackthory like trailer or whatever.

They were charming and stupid. People would believe it. Xbox 720. Yeah. Now all the fake Avengers leaks. It's just like, it's just stupid. Like, you can tell that it's AI for the most part, but still, you're just kind of like, I don't know. It kind of looks like something that Joe and Anthony Russo would film, you know?

She looks better than the film. How do I search someone's letterbox to find out if they've seen anything? I don't, can you? Oh, I see. No, I figured it out. What are you trying to find? Oh, nothing. Sure.

Oh, yeah, it's not, don't worry about it. It's little nothing, nothing. He's trying to see how many black and white films we've seen and judge us. All right, did we answer the question? It was, who would I? I think so. Yeah, who would I be disappointed also? Yeah, I guess Neil Green.

Yeah, we all, most of my answers to these questions are Derek Savage and Neil Breen. Fair enough. I got to recommend. Yeah, what have you go for us? Is this going to be good, bad, somewhere in the middle? Look, I loved uglies. Okay. I thought it was a nice treat, and I thank you deeply.

Right. Yeah, you're welcome. You did cower out of some discussion. I did. I had a technical issues. And you gave up. Yeah. You gave up willingly.

Okay. And I do find it hilarious. that Alex changed his recommendation to a nice movie that he likes. I don't like where this is going. Look, okay. All I'm going to say

is like, I think we're all kind of intrigued about this one anyway. And Olivia really wants me to watch it. And I'm curious. Peter 5-8, the new Kevin Spacey 2024. Oh shit.

Which, like, recently got released on Tobe, apparently. What? I don't even know about this. Okay, cool. Well, then you're intrigued now. Is that that one where he's, like, Oh, I don't know. Is he, like, investigating?

I feel like I saw a trailer or something. What was it called again? Yeah, no, I think I saw a trailer, like, a while ago and forgot about it, too. It's called Peter 5.8. Holy shit. 2024 film. Oh, yeah, there it is. Pizza 58.

Yeah. hour 40 minutes not too, you know, huge of a commitment or anything. It's fucking tubey if you want to watch it on tubey. Was this filmed in Israel? Oh, I don't know, actually. I have no ideas. Wow, yeah, this looks... But I'm intrigued.

I'm intrigued and, you know, like, this could be a fun discussion. Yeah, I've seen the trailer for this. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it could be fun. I think it could be fun. Okay. All right, all right. I'm looking forward to this.

This is going to be interesting. Okay, thank you. Good. Yeah, that's good to hear. good to hear. Yeah. Nice. That's a good one.

Perfect. Everybody's happy. Just seeing Kevin Spacey holding a gun in that poster? Yeah, yeah. I was looking at the same frame. In this town, nothing is what it seems. Thank you. Doesn't he like sing on cruise ships now or something?

I swear I've seen like clips of him like, that's what he does now, Kevin. He's got like, is he, does he have brass knuckles while he's holding the gun? Is that what's happening? Or did AI fuck up his fingers or something? What's going on there? He's got like kitty paws. What's happening? Anyway, I was looking at Rotten Tomatoes,

and I thought that it said 67%, but that's the audience rating. It only has one review on the critics. So. Oh, no. Yeah, that's good. Wait, but it's a positive review. NYC movie guru,

a wildly entertaining, gripping. Gripping. gripping and a wickedly funny crime thriller okay this is interesting so that review is from 24 so they must have had a way to like see it in a theater or something when it came out and now that it's widely available no critics are watching it so we're gonna be the first maybe all right if you didn't uh yeah anybody listening if you want to uh if you don't want to be spoiled for 2024 film Peter 58 starring Kevin Spacey directed by Michael

Zyko Hall watch it before the next episode comes out these episodes come out every two weeks you can listen to them early by going to sardonicast.com sign up for fucking premium you get it ad free okay ad free do it do it

wait guys I just sent you the website of the movie reviewer who is the single reviewer of Peter 5thead oh he has his own website oh nice oh I love it when it's on sites like this. I love blast to the past websites. Yeah.

It looks like my website. Google's warning me it's not secure as well. Oh. Yeah. You got to use the VPN. Missile strike. I was kidding. Are we sponsoring a VPN right now?

I have an affiliate link. I could say surfshark. Dot deal slash YMS. Is that what it is? I don't remember. Slash Kevin Spacey. I tried it a while ago and then. there's like a test run

and then I was like what the fuck my dashboard is showing like nothing and I know people that used the link and signed up I was like what the fuck

and I thought they scammed me I sent an email forgot about it for a while and then I checked it again like a couple months ago it's like showing that I did get paid around that time I'm like okay

did I look at it wrong I don't know but this is how this is how I do my fucking ad reads is I like fuck it I yeah our first ad reads

If you're looking for a VPN anyway, anyway, ad free on Patreon. All proceeds go to Kevin Space's legal fund. Yeah, ad free on Patreon and also members on YouTube. And if you're a member on YouTube, check the community posts tab for the ad-free version. The ones that say members that you click on are not ad-free. Don't ask us, YouTube's dumb.

But we post the ad-free one in the community tab. They're unlisted and you access them by being a member. It's so complicated. I wish they would fix it. I hate having to explain this. Just make it simple. Anyway, uh, yeah. Sardonicast highlights as well.

Uh, happy, um, happy Christmas. Happy Christmas. He was jumping ahead. Happy Kevin Spacey. No, well, Kevin Spacey is famous for his, uh, Christmas. unhinged insane videos he posts. That's true. So happy Christmas.

We all love Kevin Spacey. And yeah, thank you. I think that was fun. All right. Yeah. We did it. Thanks. Thanks, everybody.

Bye. Bye, bye, bye, everyone. Happy motherfucking bride.