Sardonicast - Sardonicast 217: Backrooms, Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu, My Darling Clementine

Episode Date: June 8, 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 Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu 28:46 Backrooms 1:13:03 My Darling Clementine 1:56:49 Questions 2:23:16 recommendation + outro

Three, two, one. It's like trying to draw a dog or something. I'm Adam from your movie, Sex. That's a quote from Backrooms. This is Sardonicast. Wow. I'm Alex from I, I'm going to go with,

I'm not my father. My father, who is Jabba the Hut. Did I mention my father's Jabba the Hut? Was that also from Backrooms? I don't remember. I think that was in Backroom. Okay. That was probably the best part.

of backrooms in my opinion. I'm Man Cary Thing. I'm Jake. And hi, my name is Grogu. That's my quote. Well, who's a Grogu? I thought it was a baby Yoda.

Baby Jake. Why do people call Grogu? His name is Grogu, and he knows the force, and he's really old, actually. These are things you would know if you had seen the film, Adam. Actually, you wouldn't have known this if you've seen the film.

Yeah, probably not, actually. crazily put that name in a title, Grogy. They doubled down on that. They messed out on hundreds of millions of dollars just not having Baby Yoda in the title. Honestly, because the fact, I realized this the other day, I was like,

they even put Star Wars in the title, and that's not doing anything. So, like, I think Baby Yoda would be the way to go. The Star Wars brand isn't selling things anymore. Should we do that one first? It seems like you guys, it seems like you guys want to talk about it. Yeah, let's just get out of the way.

Like Disney's kind of getting Star Wars out the way. Me, fuck this shit. Yeah, it should be like a minion movie, you know, where it's like, whatever. It's for babies, it's the Baby Yoda movie, full stop. I guess that's where we're at. The Baby Yoda movie actually would be great. Yeah.

Like as a title, not as a thing for society. Yes, I guess, yeah, we haven't had a glup on the big screen in seven years. What's that? And this was the strategy. Oh, a Glopshito? What is it? You don't know what Glopshadow is? I've heard everybody say that word for the past six months now, but I don't...

People say it in relation to this movie. Is it a... Well, it comes to your mind if I said, Subalba? Uh... The Jewish one from episode one. No. Okay. That was a different one.

The point is every single background character in Star Wars has some name like Gloupschito. Oh, that's a real name. Wikipedia. No, no, it's just like the catch-well term for like, oh, every single thing has an identity and wiki page. And it's kind of gone to such an extreme parody of itself. This is where we're at where we have the Gloubchito movie. We're like most of the characters in the film, whether you like it or not, are kind of background characters and loosely referenced to other stuff from this universe that you know,

because it's kind of stuck in this bind where poster and all, where it was like too good for this franchise and it's kind of like broken everything open. Where it's like, oh, so that was like a little flash of what this maybe could have been once, but now we're stuck with John Favreau and Dave Filoni kind of playing with action figures, and that's fine, some people, I guess. It was fine in the first couple seasons of the show that this is, a sequel movie to, in quotes. I guess it's technically a movie. I'm sorry to death, but it's a TV show. It's like, it has the cadence of a TV show. It moves

like a TV show. You can like, if you had the whole movie down in a timeline, you could cut it up into like, oh, that would be a good point for the episode to end. That's like the tease for next week. It's like pretty blatant with that. Yeah, follows in the grand tradition of Mulholland Drive, you know, very similar to Mahal and the sense that it was once a television show that was scrapped and turned into a feature film. Sort of like Moana 2, actually. So really there's a lot of similarities there between the films. And I think, yeah, and Moana 2 is the good pool because I think that taught Disney,

oh, like, we kind of don't even need to try and we just make a billion bucks on this IP alone. Hey, we can make more money if we just turn this into a theatrical film where people pay money. They're gambling addicts. Yeah, and this was a gamble. They're literally gambling addicts. Yeah, this was a gamble of like, well, like, we haven't done much outside of the streaming space with this brand, let's test it. Seven years later, what our audience is hungry for. And I guess Star Wars fans kind of like it, but that doesn't seem to be...

Do they? There don't seem to be many, like, new Star Wars fans anymore. Oh, no. It's like an uncool, like, lame thing to like now. They've, like, drained it of anything. I'm winning. I'm winning so hard. Adam's definitely winning.

And, yeah, like, it's... is one of these, like, what happens, everything is static in this film. Like, every character is exactly the same at the end as they are at the beginning. It's kind of like a string of set pieces. I'm curious, Jake, like, how much do you know of like some of these random characters that are coming in here? Do you know who, like, Zeb is, for example? No, no.

You're like clapping at the screen when Zeb was showing up. No, no, no. I clapped only one time, and that was when I, spoilers thought, Mandalorian died, but he didn't die. I don't know if that's like a big... Well, no one's ever really gone. No one's ever really gone, but there was a moment

when I thought, like, wait, are they just going to let him die? But they did not. I clapped when Babu Frick was on screen. Adam, you're familiar with the... Who? Beloved... Babu Frick, right? I'll look him at.

No, no, it's okay. I'll drop a... I have a photo ready to go to send you. I would know any of these characters if just one of them was fuckable. Like I would know. Well, you tell me. I'd have some way of figuring it out.

They're all disgusting. This is Babu Frick. And he and his many, don't say that. He and his siblings or friends who are also all minors or something, engineers, they help Grogu in a very long, silent, almost dialogue-free sequence near the end of the film. They help him go rescue Mandalorian, who is, what's, his name. It's like din something. Zell, Washington.

Jha, Jha, something. Dinsel, Washington. Yeah, Denzel. Yeah, no, I had a really bad time. It was a very sleepy movie. I really fought to stay awake during the entire runtime. And it's just really

unremarkable. It's not really atrociously bad. It's just extremely bland. I don't know. Had you seen any of the show that this is a ending movie of three seasons? No. No. No. Wow. So brave. Yeah. And like, yeah, it's the exact same experience whether you've seen the show or not. Right, right. I hear that people who watch the show like it even less because they're kind of like, hey,

it follows similar like narrative beats. Like I hear that it was a big moment in season two or something when Mando takes off his mask in front of Grogu. And, here it's just kind of like awkwardly done when the bad guys make him take off his mask and then like five minutes later they're like hey here's your mask back by the way because yeah we don't want to keep paying you the big bucks pedro pascal in this scene yeah that's what i didn't get about this strategy where like they kind of stumbled into this being a cool success like to begin with with the mandolorean show everyone was super anti-style was at that point even but the i don't know people vibe with it it was like this serialized just low-stakes, small, like, adventure show. Yeah. I had about two seasons worth of story. It was, like, cute and fun. Also, COVID.

Breezy. Also, what? COVID. It came out. Oh, yeah. And COVID, yeah. Literally November 2019 was when it was released. So, like, everybody is.

Yeah, yeah. So it was perfect timing for all that. But then, yeah, they kind of, they stumbled into the success of that first season. It's this huge event. Then they rush out the second season, which winds up being a bunch of references. and they kind of blow their load too early. And they're like, well, the story would like end here if we had like integrity, but it's too popular.

Like we got to have baby Yoda back and have baby Yoda doing shit, right? So then they made a season three. And it just felt like, well, we're just standing in place for this and nothing's happening. And then like years and years go by and it's like, I guess we'll do a movie now. That doesn't care about any character. And it's like, hmm, I know the hook for this movie is we're going to make rotter the hut to come back as a main character who was in the 2008 animated film. He was a preexisting character?

They weren't just like, hey, what if we had buff java? Like, let's do buff java. In the Dave Filoni directed 2008 Clone Wars movie that launched that animated show, Rotter was the plot of that movie. So Rotter is not only connected to the Mandalorian who has met Luke. He also is connected to Anakin Skywalker and Asoka. It's all like this small galaxy syndrome just like stop. So this is all Dave Faloni, right?

So can you help explain to me what the deal is with Dave Faloni's reign of terror now upon Lucasfilm? Like why is, why do people hate Dave Faloni? Why do people like him? I just don't really know what's going on. Yeah, it's part of what makes talking about Star Wars as a franchise at this point. So like impossible because they're all these like kind of cults really of like sects of like fan bases. like war over like what they want it to be. And Dave Faloni was a big part of that Clone Wars show, which kind of retconned and did its best to duct tape and like fix up things from the prequels

and make it like more bearable or flesh out like ideas from it. So people credit that to him and really enjoyed what he did with that in that animated space. But then in this like Disney transition, they kind of chose him as a big like figurehead of well, he was kind of like Lucas's apprentice now he can he can do everything but it is this weird snake eating its own tale where like george lucas was he was obsessed by like with films that inspired him that weren't like itself because like dave phlone he's obsessed with star wars where you know lucas like kurosawa and like classic old films and was like film from something it sounds like pheloni was lucas's like wikipedia guy just kind of like hey what's what did i say in this movie yeah he's

got like the Star Wars Bible and kind of he loves the like fandom side of it and he's like written he wrote the script with John Favreau and Noah Claw and not sure who that is but like he's in the film as a character called Trapper Wolf and it's just like very like deviant art O.C. kind of like what are we doing here with this shit at this point? Like the cameo stuff pissed me off. I just I went into this just wanting it to be. Just a glup frenzy, you know, just like I want to see how far they would go into this like trove of shit and just like How insane could they make it to try and make this work? Turned out to be a shit of it and you kind of got at it. Yeah, well, you were kind of getting at it though where it is

mostly boring actually the story kind of like Feels like it's wrapping up like an hour in after this action scene that is so insane Like this chase through like Star Wars New York and this like the chess piece pieces from a new hope that were all like fighting each other. And it was like, okay, this is the glup frenzy I'm looking for. This is insane. But they actually thought it was acceptable to put this on the big screen and like bring this alive.

It's so weird because it feels like in the show from what it sounds like, they're kind of doing like a Western motif kind of doing like lone wolf and cub. They're doing the man with no name trilogy. Like if you're going to do that, it kind of requires that you have interesting fun characters. Like, think about the good, the band, the ugly. Like, Clint Eastwood is sort of like a Mandalorian stoic type of character. He isn't what's the best part of that movie, in my opinion. It's all the other guys, you know, who are crazy.

It's, you know, Tuko and all these big characters. So it's like if you're going to do this movie, like, you need to have some, like, really exciting, interesting characters around the margins that are, like, more of the focus that can grow. Because if we're, like, treating Mandalorian as a static character, like, that's totally fine. But you need to, like, build the relationships and other places. And, like, with what you have here is just, like, buff Jabba the Hut, played by Jeremy Allen White, who just kind of like sounds really bored, who just doesn't want to be like his father. There's nothing there.

And it's so weirdly, again, weirdly pace that it does feel like episodes stitched together. There is literally a moment, like an act break in the film where Mandalorian says, I think I'm going to take a rest now. He just, like, did a, it literally, it's like, okay, let's pause the video game. I just did a mission. Actually, I'm kind of tired, so I'm going to go, like, eat some bagel bites, and then I'll come back to the game. It's just such a sleepy, dull film that, yeah, once you get to the end, you're just kind of like, oh, this is all we're doing, and it's really not that interesting. And if there is a character arc, it is, like, just the most basic stuff of, you know, Rada is like, all right, I'm not going to be like my father. Great, I'm not like my father.

And then Baby Yoda, sorry, Grogu, is basically like he learns to like push a button. Like, like, Mandalorian trusts him to push a button on the spaceship because it's like, oh, you're actually like competent at taking care of me when I was ill. But that's even just like the last third of the movie. And so much of it is just like something that annoyed me so much. And I learned this after watching the movies, that there's a big action. scene in the middle of the movie where they're all fighting these like CGI monsters that looks like sludge and they move like wiggly squirmy slush and things. Oh the chess pieces. Yeah. And I learn later, oh no, that's actually a cool reference to a new hope because those are the chess pieces

that Luke plays with and I'm like, okay, I don't give a fuck. Yeah, that's how far we are with the reference shit at this point. Because I noticed that immediately. Okay. We're actually like plucking from there. At this point it's like, how many layers deep can you get with that? And it was, it actually affects the script at a certain point too. They kept, it's called like a, like a dejoric game or something.

And in the script, they kept saying like, it's the dejuric game. It's that game. Yeah, it's a new hope everybody. It's like, yeah, it can't escape that and do its own thing. It's so railroaded by what it like, think it thinks it needs. needs to be. And on some level, all it does need to be is a

fun, late breezy adventure movie. I'm fine with that. Like if it was good at doing that. If it was breezy and if it was fun, you know, but there's nothing fun or light about it. What's annoying is they've made him like a work.

They've made every character worse than their previous appearance. They've like dumb them down for this movie. Like the main character is way more going on in the show. He's in this like cult, basically this like armor cult and he's like doing a creature of the weak kind of bounty onto thing and getting paid in this rare metal that he's like making his armor out of but there's like a limited amount of it it's like all this stuff it's not really a part of the movie at all it's very just and then and then and then and then and then and then and then and then the end there's not

like a twist there's a Cigone who like Weaver is in here and Martin Scorsese and they have all this like crazy performers and they didn't do anything with them everyone's like sleep walking through it Pedro Pascal He takes his helmet off for like one scene But even his vocal performance was like It wasn't like this in the show Like What is going on with this? It's really lazy

It's it's a bizarre thing And I found this article that I think is very funny Recently on games radar Says John Favro isn't exactly sure Why he was asked for the Mandalorian in Grogu To be the first Star Wars movie in seven years Yeah No one knows.

So it did seem genuinely like, from what I understand, they were working on a fourth season and then Disney was like, hey, let's just make this a movie. Perfect. Why not? So that's what we have. It's just a why not type of movie. And I think, like, Alex, you're hinting in all this great, interesting stuff about Mandalorian and the TV show. But it's also like, oh, we need to appeal to a wider audience and just make this a fun story. but I don't know anything about the guy.

He's just a guy in a mask. You don't even see him a moat. Like it is worse than any stoic character in history because he is literally behind a mask the whole time. So it's like you don't even know what's going on. And you're just kind of relying on this puppet who is cute. You know, Grogu is cute. I will admit that.

But he is offering nothing there besides just being a cute puppet. And the best sequence in the movie is like the silent, like separate, like, it seemed like a subplot or like it could have been its own interesting episode of the TV show of like, oh, here's an episode where Grogu has to do his own thing and survive by his own wits and take care of Mandalorian while he's incapacitated. And that works for like 20 minutes of like, oh, we get to see these puppets in a jungle and that's great. And then it goes back into this thing. And then, you know, they do like 9-11 to Jabba the Hutt's palace. Like they literally fly a plane right into the palace. And it's like, I thought. they were going to die.

They literally just fly a strained to the palace, but I guess it's made of mud, so they like slide into it. And the villains have actually been taken out by that point, too. So there's actually no reason for him to, like, cool it in with the urgency that he does in that moment. Also, physically, like, the job of the, rod of the hut should not exist. Like, there's nothing that makes sense about him being like a fighting slug. Like, you look at Jabba the hut.

He's supposed to be like a mob boss in, you know, Return of the Jet. Jedi and he just looks like a giant slug. And like, why are we trying to visually make it work so that Jeremy Allen White is voicing a slug that fights in every scene? He like rides in a limo, he like climbs into spaceships, he's hopping around. Like it does not... He like can't fit into any space. So like the whole action sequences like based around how seemingly large he is in the space

He's like hanging from like a hammock in the spaceship so that he can fit. Like it's so weird. and it's just, and it comes across as like, this is the lore, you know, this is what we built this lore around this. So this is how it has to work. Even though, like, visually, spatially, it just doesn't really make sense. Yeah, I saw a clip of John Favreau in some interview doing the rounds talking about, like, oh, we had many years to figure out how to get rotter fighting, how to make that work, the physics of it.

It was like, it was like, you can't fit. with Avatar. Yeah, exactly. And that has been a John Favreau problem, as Adam's pointed out again, just like being obsessed with tech. And the story doesn't matter and the storytelling is not important. It's just like a vehicle for like, oh, some IP thing. It's something you already know. It's music you already know. It's just something you already know. And now there's just a way to buy pop vinyl. Like that's the main reason it exists. There's no, there's no balance there. There's no like integrity to what it's trying to do. do and I don't know if it that comes across like I'm asking for too much but it's like do do the bar is solo yeah solo yeah I don't even know what to say at this point because like there is a lot of like genuinely fantastic artistry in the movie you mentioned the puppets

they're all great it did some stop motion did you know yeah yeah because during that whole there's the stop motion action sequence towards the end of the movie with these like robots that when I first watched I was like there's no way this is actual storm motion right like this looks this looks amazing and I thought it was like an ode two fill tippet but then finding out

oh my god they actually did that that's awesome then it's like what it's actually in service of is so okay there's no real like payoff or like well building or anything kind of cool about the way any of this stuff was implemented it was just yeah just a bunch of set pieces

like in a row it's like oh we got to have the stormtrooper the fight here We've got to have the chess pieces fight here. We need to have like a chase scene here. It's like very, yep, just by the numbers, boring action maybe. Yep, it sucks. The end. Well, I didn't watch it in case anybody's curious at home.

But John is your favorite filmmaker. Why would you skip? John. So imagine that we are like reviewing food. but I'm like I've got an allergy right so like yeah this is just an episode where like they're eating something that I'm allergic to so I can't I do have a question though was it above or below your expectations it was blown wow I thought at least they would do like a movie you know like hey we're doing a movie so let's like amp up the stakes and have something

happen but just nothing happened it's just not even a movie. That's a good way of putting it. Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't feel like a movie. It feels like an afterthought or like a test. It's like they're putting their pinky in the water to test the temperature as a movie. Which is not really paying off as far as a gross so far.

I think it needs to make three, four hundred minimum just to kind of get some of that production, a budget back. Yeah, that's the big narrative this week. We're recording on June 2nd, and the big narrative right now is like obsession and backrooms is just blowing this out of the water. Like, this is just a non-entity. They're blowing Glepshito's back out. Yeah. And it's not like this one even has a particularly inflated budget.

Like I mentioned solo. That did have like one of the highest budgets of all time. And maybe if it had a more. kind of modest budget like this movie it would have been okay but the brand is just completely diluted and there's no excitement really for it outside of hell yeah just an a shrinking fan base um but I'm really getting what they want so yeah I don't know what this that's gonna mean they're probably gonna make an another somehow even worse decision like never like doubt how low they can take I think

deep fake original trilogy remakes that's that's that's gonna be the big swing I think they should tear down the theme parks I'm telling you

that's kind of what it felt like like an advert for the theme park just like that they should remake the original trilogy in the style of and or

and just continue and or throughout like the original trilogy but you know that would be kind of interesting so we can't do that I kind of want

the original trilogy bit inspired diverse art style, you know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, honestly, they just need to stop making anything for probably 10 years. Like, they just kind of need to give it a break. They're addicts. They're literally grandma in the slot machine. Like, that's why they can't just quit when they're ahead.

It can't just be one season of Mandalorian. They're like, oh, that worked. Let's do it again. They're literally grandma on the slot machine. If you're supposed to be, quote, unquote, a creative company. like a Disney where your thing is supposed to be like telling stories on some level. What? How is that like congruent with like, you're like a publicly traded company that's like constantly panicking to be like, fuck shit, we got to this isn't working. We got to just make a thing now and release it now to play Kate.

I mean, like, yeah, how's it ever going to really work out? As it just gets bigger and bigger like that. That's just like stranglehold by their positioning really and like the most in like the market. It's the fact that they're publicly traded. Yeah. It just happens. And shit's a idea.

Absolutely. You know, I wanted to mention earlier, and I'm glad I didn't forget, Baby Jake is a good rapper name, so you should keep that. Baby Jake? Yeah. Yeah, you could do some R&B with that. That's probably taken. That's probably taken.

no I feel like what did you give it sorry the grogoo baby movie what did I give it I gave it my heart and soul and I gave me nothing back I did you give it a three out of ten three out of ten I mean very nice maybe four out of ten if it was a movie but it's not a movie so that was my that's the thing if I was just putting this on at like midnight on Disney Plus and was like a bit out of it I'd be like oh that's funny they put like Rottor and something again that's hilarious like for me but then this is like this is a big movie and they want people to go out and take the whole family like spend all this money and time but no it just doesn't

really pay off and this is a one and a half style for me with a like though for all the all the glups in there are there any gulp shittos because they always confuse them is there a difference you have to like disable the safety filter to find those okay The gulpishes. Yeah. Yeah, maybe you're right. No, you know what? I hated it, but fantastic time.

I'm really happy. Oh, fantastic time. Yeah, yeah. Okay. They could put that on the DVD. Just fantastic time. They should. By man.

Thanks, Joan. If only there was some way that we could have anticipated that it wasn't going to be like a pleasant experience. Like, I feel really bad for you guys. I just lucked out because I'm allergic, but. Well, I do it for the people. I do it for the love of the game. I do it so that, and also I'm newer in this world than you guys are.

You guys have been talking about movies way longer than I have. And living. Well, not that much longer. But I feel like the longer I do this in terms of like, okay, I'm going to go seek out a movie I know I probably won't like, like Mandelaarine and Grogu. Because it is what's big, what people are talking about. I feel like the more I do that, the more I'm going to become like Adam and just be like, I don't have the heart for this. You know, this is just like...

You got to pick your battles. Yeah, I suppose so. I mean, like, I don't know if I'm going to see Masters of the Universe this week. I don't know if I can do that to myself. It might be good, but I just know I'm probably not going to like it. But, yeah, nobody is forcing me. But, you know, the market forces are there. And, um...

Nadia might force me. Okay. Well, I mean, if it's a social, see, I've always felt like watching a movie with someone that wants to watch that movie and I like that person, I can watch anything. Because then it's like essentially, even if you don't say anything. It's like you just get to share an experience with someone. Yeah, no. I haven't gone to a theater and watch a movie with her for a while for a long time.

Yeah, the baby. Because we, yeah, we'd have to get a babysitter every time. And it's just like, it's not, if we see movies every week, it's just not really. be a nuisance to everyone else in the movie. Yeah, I just bring my baby into into backrooms. Yeah. He's, he loves backrooms. He likes the web series.

Speaking of backrooms. Bathrooms. Bathrooms. WCs. Wait. Are you using the baby? No, I was just making a rhyme. Okay.

That's fine. That's fine. We can do that. It's our podcast, right? We can just rhyme. We can do whatever the fuck we want, which is why I didn't watch Star Wars. I take it you did see backroom.

Yes. No, yeah. I had some interest in it, and I watched it out of interest and not some sense of obligation to be a part of like a broader cultural conversation, although there was a tiny bit of that because there's some hype around this movie.

I feel like this is something that definitely, it's making a lot of money off of the name for sure. Some amount of that is because of the marketing story of the fact that it was made by like a four-year-old or something. But that's pretty cool. That was part of it. Yeah. But it's that kind of analog online horror stuff that finally filmmakers are over the age where they can bring that into Hollywood in a way that actually kind of translates and is a, I don't know, it's got some cool ideas. Some, they just really connects.

Like we were talking with obsession recently and just this horror space being able to bring these ideas from using a lot of like online storytelling and these younger influences and came past since he was what like 16 when he was releasing the whole backrooms series, which is incredible. So yeah, I'm loving this kind of exploration of this space and this whole kind of I never really watched like the backrooms videos on YouTube. But I like the idea of like the kind of video gamey SCP, almost, these secret organizations and these weird concepts like the backrooms and liminal horror, I guess, which is what backrooms is really about. Yeah, have you guys seen the original? No. Kane Parsons YouTube stuff. I've seen a few of them. You know, a while ago, like when they were coming out, I was kind of following along, not like any N&A dedicated.

way. I'd like kind of like see it if it popped up on my you know, uh, feed or whatever. But, um, it was, it was always impressive and like really captivated me. And, um, it's just amazing how he made it in Blender and it's just so, um, artfully done. And I, I was never surprised when it, it came out that 824 is tapping him to make a backroom's movie. I was like, yeah, of course. That makes total sense. But my question was like, are they going to make it like, like, are they going to make it, like, like a movie or they're going to make it like backrooms you know is it going to be like hey we got to do an a 24 film or is it going to be hey we're going to do backrooms and i think the result is kind of like a little bit of both i think like the what i really love about backrooms is the found

footage nature and it is kind of slow and it really builds in that dread in that mystery and i think those are the most effective parts of the backrooms movie uh personally you know and I think that's what's really what he's really extremely talented at. Now, not to say the movie parts of backrooms were, by which I mean, like, you know, the not found footage parts or the just the actual story and characters, they weren't as strong, but it still worked, you know, like it's a movie that I think is overall successful and is a really interesting concept. and it carried forward what I thought worked about the web series.

Yeah, it definitely fit the premise. Like it delivered on what it said it would deliver on. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, kind of, it weirdly reminded me of like a cube or something, which we've talked about on this show before. Just in the sense of like a smaller kind of budget horror movie where the appeal is kind of the concept where the back rooms is the most interesting and intriguing part of the film. I agree that some of the character stuff specifically was kind of what

held it back for me, but the actual location, the like the way it's presented, the production design choices and almost in kind of like an iron lung type way, just the idea of someone being in this dreamlike space and trying to make sense of it is just fascinating. like watching somebody trying to like map that out and try and figure out like what is going on here and where that would take someone and I think that's my issue with some of the script here is it kind of filling in too many of the blanks for me almost yeah I agree especially like with the some of the comments that the character is actually making where it's like I could have put that together you're like kind of communicating some of these ideas visually anyway I don't feel like I needed to have the character literally say some of this stuff sometimes and it's it's a lot more effective when it is just kind of indulge in the atmosphere in the setting. But I liked it overall, I think. Yeah, I agree with you on that in terms of like the script moments coming in where it's like, okay, we need the script to say this, you know, for people who aren't,

you know, getting it. Right. And I thought, like, of course, like, okay, this is a little too heavy-handed. Like, the object that represents her trauma, you know, she has to use that, whatever, like, during certain moments. But I'm like, okay, yeah, this is the script. Like, it has to do that. I don't love that it's there.

I'm more interested in this other stuff. But then you come out of the theater and you go online and you see all these people, you know, who were like giving it negative reviews because they're like, none of it made sense. Like, I have no idea what happened. You know, I couldn't follow anything. And I'm like, I feel like this is the opposite problem. Like, should it have dumbed down the themes a little more? Like, I feel like what's what I'm happy about the movie doing is that it did leave some things open-ended and open for interpretation,

even though like the character journeys were kind of like, you know, on the nose. a little bit. Yeah, the script was one of the weaker elements for sure. It just, I felt like we didn't know anything about the therapist character. And just like, you know, there were things that were implied about her. I don't know how quickly we want to get into spoilers, I guess. I guess I'll just say, we all recommend it to some degree, right? We all enjoyed it.

Definitely check out, especially if you're a fan of this slew of horror stuff that are all whack in different. Yeah, I guess right before I get into spoilers, I guess I'll just talk about a couple of the elements that aren't really story-related. Cinematography, I am a huge fan of like wide shots and wide angles. And so for the first chunk of the movie, I was like satiated in that sense,

although I do have to admit that it felt like it was lacking a sense of proper motivation for these shots. It almost felt like, you know, there's some restaurants where they'll use things like truffle as like kind of a crutch where, sure, it's a great ingredient and you love, well, I love truffle. But like, at some point you have to wonder, like, was this dish made in a way where truffle is complementing it? Or are you just adding it on top anyway just because it's something that you can, that people might

Like, you know, like it almost felt like it was being applied in every aspect. Like what's the intention here? Yeah, without it like mattering as much. And so even though I love those types of shots, I felt like its frequency and also its lack of motivation just wound up making me kind of numb to it by like 30 minutes into the movie. You know, like I was enjoying it at first visually. But then I was kind of like, damn, I'm like not really feeling anything from this anymore. And it feels kind of like incidental where the camera is placed in many of these shots. Or there's some scenes that are like in the therapy room where it like in the office,

where you can see his hand like move up. He's like gesturing in front of him. But his hand is like ridiculously out of focus at that point. And it's like, uh, you know, like kind of, did you think about that one? or like one of the first scenes where the two of them are together, like at the tail end of right before a cut to the female character, I forget her name, right before a cut to her, the camera just barely starts like slowly, subtly moving towards Chewetel's character.

But because of where the cut is, it makes it feel like, oh, damn, like, you had an idea for the shot on set, but you didn't think about how it would be edited. So then you have like another static shot of her and then cut back to like what the push-in shot was like supposed to be. But just the timing of it was so weird. And so it looks better than average cinematography-wise. Like it has a style and I love that it has a style.

And it works towards the feeling that it's trying to present. And I like that. but I think over time Kane as a director will be more intentional and have more forethought in terms of

like the overall shot composition like there was something missing there was something lacking in that sense but still looks good overall yeah would recommend it all right spoiler time unless you guys want to talk about the cinematography as well I know I'm kind of

it's like a particular The only other thing I would say on the cinematography specifically was just that I don't think that would be an issue for me if there was just a bit more going on like character-wise or with the script or if it was just a little bit trimmed up. I think it is too long for what it is personally. And for the way it moves. There's shots in here that would feel right at home and perfectly in place in like a really, really well-shot movie. Like, there's some shots that, like, on their own removed from context, are, like, really fantastic. But just because of the lack of purpose and the lack of, like, restraint in the film,

like, they just don't have as much impact in the greater picture. Although I did like the creative choice of not only using that kind of the negative space and these big wide shots, only inside the back rooms. I did like the way it would shoot outside of it too in a kind of similar eerie and kind of vacuous way.

I thought that was actually quite a good choice. And it did feel, I was never really scared of this film, but I did find it eerie and creepy and it did have an atmosphere that I thought was appropriate for its setting and kind of gets your mind wearing it.

So like, what the fuck is going on with you? This is wrong. Atmospherics everything. Yeah, yeah. Especially in horror. Like the best, horror films are ones that have a great sense of atmosphere, right? Time and time again.

Like even obsession has like a really strong sense of atmosphere. Yeah, I started this film with the mindset of damn. I'm really enjoying this found footage perspective old camera shit at the beginning. And I love how long it went on. And I love how it was like, you know, perhaps not. one shot, but cheated to be one shot. And I love the restraint in the audio and how we were really just like hearing the space and the silence of the space and there wasn't like, you know, they didn't, they didn't throw in a bunch of like scary music or like suspense music or, you

know, they knew exactly what made that type of scene work well. And before the scene was even over, I was just thinking, like, damn, I wish they had the balls to, like, just do this for a whole movie. And then once the live action, well, I mean, it's all live action, then once the non-found footage parts started, I was like, you know what? I'm actually kind of impressed, and they're still managing to carry the tone and atmosphere through this. And, you know, I don't wish that they did found footage the entire movie. And then by the end of the movie, I was like, You know what, I do wish they did found footage the entire movie. But yeah, it's not all bad.

It's not all bad. There's some impressive stuff going on here. Just like need to work out the kinks, I guess. See, I thought like from a like a visual structure, that way of doing it was a very cool way of doing it. Like adapting that, that look of the original YouTube series. Because that was kind of my fear was like, well, they're just going to remake that then? I was kind of wanted to go into this with like use that kind of money and the, the resources to do something different with this, you know, show a different kind of scope.

And yeah, you do get the found footage stuff in there in a couple of standout sequences, but it was that kind of contrast that I thought was really cool. And there was a strong motivation with, yeah, we're in spoilers, aren't we, with that, the Chihuatl, Edge of Four character. It's a set in the 90s, so you don't have, like, a phone to casually just film this stuff. So it made sense to me why he was, like, going in there and trying to get some evidence and kind of convince. Sure.

I don't know why it had to be this relationship. like this therapist kind of dynamic. I didn't really connect that much with that outside of you know, it's a shortcut,

isn't it, to get into the mind of the Clark character. Even though I feel like that's kind of what is cool about the backrooms as like a visual metaphor anyways, that you could kind of

communicate a lot of what you're talking about during this therapy stuff by him just exploring the backrooms and kind of watching him as a character. Like, that's where the heart of this is to me. like the where they take him as a character and this kind of the way he embraces it when this kind of like

there's all these little clues you get like he was uh he wanted to be an architect but he's kind of past that now and he's in this store that he doesn't really care about this furnisher store and there is something liminal about it and it mimics like his headspace so watching someone get like lost in that and these like blurry stretched memories and like bitterness and there's something really cool and creepy about that. But I just feel like it kind of rushes somewhere between the second and third act to get to like, okay, we now need like a monster to chase a lady around when I just felt like, man, I feel like we're onto something with this cloud character.

And I know he has concluded through when it like shifts to that merry character. But as you say, she just feels like a just kind of like a vehicle for the story at that point. It doesn't really feel like a character. It's like, yeah, so we can get the scary. The scary chase bit where I feel like there was something more kind of psychologically interesting going on with Clark without that a play at all really. And the random Duplus, Mark Duplus, including too. He worked for it.

I kind of liked that. I liked him. Yeah, no, he did. That as like an open-ended, okay, I like this as like a trope, the shady organization that was like an MRI company that has stumbled into this weird place and they're trying to figure it out and they're kind of shady and what's going on there. that was cool. But there was just, yeah, that main transition of these two characters that wasn't fully loving.

Yeah. No, I think what they were doing with the fact that he's like an architect and the fact that she's a therapist is because the thematic ideas about the back rooms are like, oh, it's like a never, like it plays on space,

you know, architect, you know, building blah, blah, blah. And then it's also about your traumas, you know? So it's like the two characters. are like representations of of the two aspects of the backrooms that the film is implying that it's like made up of like that your trauma is a space or whatever yeah yeah which is more with some of my critiques with that literal script like when he starts verbally just making these comparisons of like like the furniture it's like this is too on the nose really for me because I feel like you'd subconsciously be picking this up anywhere It's like what makes it creepy in the first place. So yeah, I wish they could have just knit that in the bud a little bit.

Yeah. So I liked everything else. I mean, it's literally just like show don't tell the type of screenwriting. And I think like for my audience at least, the real first like kind of like sagging moment in the story was when Clark is just kind of explaining who he is to his therapist in a very long scene that gets repeated in the second half of the movie and kind of, they play on it and try to like make it an interesting thing. And I do like that dinner table scene, but, you know, to have this long scene where he kind of talks about and we can kind of intuit who he is to then be followed by a sequence of seeing him at work and we see him kind of like watching his ex-wife from the window, you know, through his car and these things. And it's like,

I wish we could have just seen who he is and learned about who he is without all of this exposition of him telling us who he is. It's just like, that's what, is so, you know, like a really good screenplay will do that. Like you don't need to just tell the audience exactly who this character is. You kind of just learn about it by watching them and seeing the choices that they make. So that was the first huge like misstep, I think, in the movie. It should have been either shortened completely or I do think like that relationship between therapist and patient was really not explored fully or it just felt like narrative shorthand. of like, hey, this is, like you were saying, Adam,

this is just a way to kind of get into the themes of the movie because ultimately Clark's character, I think, um, fails, uh, in his resolutions, you know, like he,

like you, Alex was saying, like he just kind of becomes crazy in the third act. You know, it would have been nice to see a bit more of that development or, or see like a natural progression of that. Yeah. Um,

and see like, crazy now. Yeah, he's crazy now. From his perspective too. Yeah. Instead of from someone else. because that's kind of what is cool about it, right?

Because he's already kind of being, different aspects of his personality are being personified by other, like, literal creatures in this case. So I feel like it would be riskier and probably more difficult to, like, get that working, not having, like, two characters to work with in the same way. But I think I would prefer how that would move, because it just feels a bit kind of clunky when you get to that section,

especially when this is a nearly two-hour-long film as well, because there is a building momentum and it felt like part of the, I know, it just lost part of that momentum when it was getting to that point for me. I feel like I much rather, and I feel this, I've said this about so many horror movies,

like I much rather would have had a situation where like the thematic ideas and what it's trying to communicate is rather than something that's kind of more or less explained is just something that like, it could be figured out by fan discussions, right? I think my ideal version of this movie is one, you know, whether or not it's all found footage, is just one where, like, there's more of a mystery, you know? Like, sure, there are aspects of the literal aspects of the back room is there's still a mystery.

But like, I feel like we didn't need to have big chunks of the movie dedicated towards, you know, know, having these characters pretend to flesh themselves out, but not really. You know, I think, I think it kind of works against itself when it's ambitious in the sense that it's trying to tell these greater stories through the backrooms, but it's just not good enough at it. So it feels like kind of a misdirect or sorry, a misstep, like a step in the wrong direction. I guess it works in the sense that I could establish the backroom. so well as a location that I could kind of picture this just being implemented into different characters or different kind of uses.

Because yeah, like visually and spatially, it was quite clever with that. I felt like I could really keep up with the characters in the space and it can simultaneously be confusing for the character, but also, oh, I recognize that within the space and I'm not getting lost within like the logic that it has, even though it is a kind of like dreamlike and detached and weird. Yeah. It felt that there was a moment in the film where it kind of like started to fall apart for me and it was when he decided to meet up with the two disposable characters to go into

the backrooms. Like before that point, even despite, you know, some clunkiness and, you know, not the best writing here and there, like, it still felt like a pretty. pretty mature film. And then just, yeah, during that scene, all of a sudden, like a brick wall, like Chuitel's performance got worse. Like he wasn't really bouncing off of those characters

in any way that felt natural. They weren't doing a great job. Like those two were just, I think it had a lot to do with like the dialogue that was written for all three of them and just not really putting much thought into their dynamics or like how they were. would interact with each other. And then, like, you know, they all just do like so much stupid shit, which, you know,

I guess it's a horror movie or whatever. But, like, I was thinking about, like, the logistics in ways that I, like, would like to not have been doing where he's, he's like, on the rope. He sees a thing. He obviously wants to get back up. Like, dude's, like, scared for his life. But he's holding, like, a gigantic camera. And he's, like, what?

He's trying to climb the rope with one hand. Like, I'm sorry. Like, it would have been, it would have worked better in that. that scenario if they had just like, I don't know, taped it to his head or something. And then from that point on, you know, like the weird kind of like conveniences of like, oh, let me set the camera down right here while I'm like in the middle of trying to like escape a thing and it just perfectly captures the, them in the frame. Like people aren't thinking about that in that moment.

You know, like when there's a thing that's a danger that you didn't know about before, like you're not thinking about where you're framing the camera you know like you're not i don't know it's just a lot of that section felt unnatural there there is an opportunity for horror there too if they lent into that a bit more it would make it scarier too yeah it was a bit more like chaotic and because that whole scene was like something i was looking forward to in the story and was like a point where it needed to escalate in some way um and it does it just feels like oh now going real quick. Yeah.

When it was like a slow build up to that point. And then that's when the transition, like the prospective character kind of shifts as to regain momentum. Yeah. And I think like Renada Renzva, she does a fight performance, but, you know,

her character is really paper thin. We only really only see who she is based on like flashes of her past and how she was like raised in this kind of like restricted environment and stuff. and she carries around the object of like her childhood, you know, the piece of concrete of the hands that like she... Chekhov's paperweight. Yeah, it is like,

okay, I got to bring it into the backrooms and I'll use it to smash the monster's face. Like that to me was just like the most screenplayy, like hacky, like come on guys. Like that's really what we're doing with her character.

Yeah, just on the nose. Her character is I'm a therapist. And it's like, I wish there was some better reason for her to go explore the back. rooms because really there's there's really just not really much of a justification for either of them to really be exploring that much i mean i get clark he's just kind of like ensnared by his curiosity he's an architect but for her you know to go uh in there you know it just it would have been

maybe more interesting if it was like she had a deeper dynamic or relationship with her patient yeah to the point where like something snaps and it's like she feels like she's lost him completely and she failed and she has this need of like i need of like i need of like i need to fix him. Like I'm not going to refuse to give up on this this patient. I'm going to try to fix him. And it's like if there was more of a personal relationship between the two, I could see like the payoff happening, you know, where it's like she's trying to correct something in his mind that can't really be corrected. And I see the movie kind of going in that direction. Yeah. You know, by the time we get to the dinner table scene and they're recreating the conversation

they had earlier, she kind of snaps and has this moment of like, well, you're not a great person. You know, you're just like doing these things. And he, his whole, his whole arc is that he fails in growth and he accepts and he wants to be stuck in his same frame of thinking because I think like where the movie sort of lost me or where I felt like it became too literal was when the characters are kind of speaking on what they think it is and they're kind of like, hey, this is about like the patterns that our brains use. You know, the patterns that we get stuck in from our childhood through trauma, we stay in those

endless loops. And it's like the backrooms where you can't escape and, you know, you can't really do anything to get out. And he decides, hey, I'd rather be in these patterns that I've grown comfortable with. And it's like, yeah, you know, and then he ends up getting eaten by the big scary monster. So, like, I don't know. Did it seem overly literal to you guys, especially in that moment? Because that's when I was just kind of like.

okay, I'm just not as interested in the backroom's concept once we kind of understand that it's sort of like built on the layers of their characters' trauma and memories. And it's like refracted through the backrooms with these kind of like characters with blurry faces and you can eat them. Like I don't know. What did you guys think of that? Yeah. Well, I think it's like just creates memories based on like things in your own head.

and that maybe like the trauma stick out more as like things that it recreates. But I don't know. It's just yeah, it like having it be more vague probably would have like been better for me. I just feel like the least entertaining scenes were when they were trying to explain all that shit. Like I pretty sure in my notes I was just like I wrote like boring. And then and then as soon as things were starting to happen again, I was like, oh, thankfully. thankfully that's picking back up like yeah it was nearly there for me on that stuff with the like how vague it wanted to be with the dial just slightly going over in that exact scene to

didn't just i didn't need this much explained like all the little investigation sciencey stuff with the duplast dude that's more like where i was satisfied Whereas, yeah, I don't really need to know outside of just some kind of basic rules. Because, yeah, you just get into that, we're talking about this last episode, right? About that kind of cosmic horror problem. And when you over-explain it, it kind of stops being as psychologically kind of creepy to me. I need that to be intact. And, you know, I've been criticising the Mary character a lot.

There are a couple of really good moments of horror with her. Like, where it ends with her, I think is a really good, cool, like strong place for it to end. That explains it enough too I think that final shot of when we're sinking Lower and Lower and Lower and then we see that version of her like we wouldn't have needed that conversation where Chutele Giof kind of explains what's going on because if it

ended like that that that shot of her in the backrooms like that I would have been like oh that's great yeah it's a discussion that's like what's going on that's so interesting and then you can theorize and argue and yeah yeah exactly I love that as an ending and also when she

when she went into the backrooms the first time and interacts with Clark, I thought that was really well executed and how kind of minimal that was put together and just like the slither of him coming around the corner and like, oh, is that like the creature? Is that him? Yeah. That was a really great moment. I think movies teach you how to watch it and I think one of the issues with this film and why there's so many zoomers who are coming out unsatisfied of like, I don't get what happened. It doesn't make any sense is because when you have scenes like that of Chewitchelogy, if we're kind of explaining, hey, this is what's going on with this.

if he's kind of explaining it half-assed and getting to certain points, the movie's kind of teaching you to expect that, you know, later on, like, okay, we're going to get more of an explanation because the movie's already doing that for me. So then when it kind of relinquishes and goes, no, actually, I'm going to let you think about this, then there are certain audience members who are going to be like,

hold on, you were explaining things earlier. Why aren't you doing that now? I don't like that. So I do think that if it maintained that sense of mystery throughout the film, then maybe that ending would have hit better for... And it's so close with that, because visually it is doing that. We've just described a couple of moments. I'm just remembering more now, like when Mary goes in to the back rooms for the first time and sees Clark's, like, he's got like a mural, this drawing with all this writing and like theories as to what he believes is going on.

And like, I saw someone had taken like a screenshot of that and was talking about it on like Twitter. And that to me is what's cool about the concept. and the less you kind of know the better about that because then it makes it scary but more intriguing to think about too but it's yeah finding that line is the challenge and it just was a bit shy for me yeah I want to point out

Jake to your point earlier about her motivation for going back into the backrooms I'm glad I wrote this down because I would have forgotten otherwise during that moment like you know after after she goes to the basement and she's contemplating whether or not to like, I guess, go inside or, you know, explore further. It has like a tiny, a very, very brief flashback of just Chewetell-Ege of For, like, being nervous in the chair in the therapy room. Or it's like, wait, we're showing a flashback of just that he was there.

Like, what's that for? Yeah. Right? I think, I completely agree. she needed a bit more motivation, but that edit just seems like they might have realized that and then just like...

Seems like in editing, they were like, oh shit, we need to kind of explain what she's doing this in the first place. It would have been cool if she had a moment during their therapy where she like, you know, just for maybe because of her own stress,

she did something where she felt like it was inappropriate and then because of that maybe she would take some sort of like maybe she would feel some sense of guilt for him like spiraling

or something and then in that sense she would feel like a responsibility to like do something that is completely out of the ordinary and you know probably breaking laws for patient doctor relationship stuff

yeah also the door creek sound yeah you probably could have easily kind of rephrase that they could have been like friends or exes or something or their way we wouldn't have to literally be a therapist but um i don't know i don't think that's that necessary with what it was going for especially of like i don't know if you've seen kind of the creature from the original youtube show kind of looks like a bacteria or something sure yeah that was kind of that was my main concern with this movie is that it was just going to turn into like the bacteria creature like chasing somebody around with nothing much else to it.

But I thought the kind of the pirate Clark thing was a nice way. That was great. I love that design. That whole sequence, the ending sequence was great. It was scary. Yeah, yeah, that was a really good way of doing it. Getting that guy from, who's like type cast as being like these big scary monsters, like the, what was an alien?

Oh, the tall guy? What was the last movie? Alien Romulus, that guy. Romulus, yeah, that's the one. Yeah, there's Clark. But that was, yeah, a cool visual. What I loved about the Captain Clark monster was that he had limits. He wasn't just like flying around on the ceiling and just crawling around like scary.

Like he was just walking around slowly. But because of the environment she's in, it's like you don't know if she's going to get to a dead end. You don't know what she's going to open into. So that's like it's like the environment's the scary part. He's just kind of following her. He's just kind of like a benign, not benign, but just like a vague threat. Yeah, it was great. And some of the questions about like that, I swear you see a shot where the company, the shady company has like captured the pirate clerk and it's like scanning it or something you see for just a second and it's got like bones on the screen.

All that kind of stuff I think is really cool and it's the kind of heart of what is good about this concept. Yeah. Yeah, I think we'll see more of this. And I mean, all this to say, I think it is really impressive for a first feature, even if it is based. on something he's kind of developed before. Like that is a big accomplishment. And I don't think he has any like major links like with obsession with like his dad like invented Hellraiser, like Vro and directed Hellraiser.

Whereas this is more of like a nice. This is just like some 16 year old on YouTube who's managed to get this working and it's not like a disaster. It's actually a really good, well made adaptation. of something cool and hopefully will inspire more horror movies of this ilk that is like slow impatient and people seem to be going out in droves and enjoying it and talking about it. It's like this is exactly what we want, right? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it's it's it's there's so much good here. There's so much interesting and and exciting that I love to see in movies and that the fact that it's a big hit that's making lots of money. You know, I have like confidence in like the director and the vision that like it's going to be taking it in an even more interesting direction in the future. So, yeah, I think it's a win for everyone. Alex, I don't know.

Do you, was it, did you hear that Curry Barker is the son of Clive Barker or something? Or who? Yeah, I was just, I just looked it up and his father is Jeff Barker. Yeah. Oh, am I going to go that wrong. Okay. No, yeah. I think people were joking about his dad being the whole racer guy.

Sometimes that's how misinformation spreads as someone makes a joke. And then it sounds like it could be true and then you think it's true. So there's my little fact check. Curry Barker. It's the name of like an Indian dog persona. What? What? The fuck?

I don't know. You thought about that for a while, didn't you? Well, it just came to me. It came to me in a dream. Sure, sure. You were like, ah, got to drop this in it. Yeah. What I would love to see

is like a backroom's miniseries. I think I would prefer that over a sequel. You know? Because you could do a bunch of different things in the backrooms. No, no. Keep it in the cinemas. I don't know. I feel like a trilogy would be cool just I don't know 90 minutes. If this could have been 90 minutes for me, I feel like that would be perfect with this kind of production. It's got like Chhuel Ejifur. I know you could do that in a TV show, but

you could do that like a trilogy. those you of these with like a great character actor? No, like not with the same characters necessarily. I mean like kind of like a bunch of different stories where the only connective tissue is that it's in the back rooms and then maybe some of them are related. But you could just have a bunch of different characters,

different stories and just like a bunch of short films essentially. I don't know. Maybe I'm crazy. You're crazy. Yeah, I feel like the obsession device would kind of work better for that. I don't know, something about the, a film works quite well to me with this. Okay, yeah, I'm just kind of worried, like, my expectation is that backrooms two or whatever, like, is that it's just going to get dumber and that they're going to try to explain more.

Like, that seems to be the trajectory of any sort of horror movie, especially ones where they have any kind of mystery, right? Whereas, like, a mini-series, to me, the limitation of having different characters in short, shorter run times almost encourages things not to be over explained. Like it almost removes the temptation. Because then you're just concerned about like, okay, what's like a cool setup or scenario or what type of like dynamic can this character experience or like what type of room? Like maybe this character will be in the pool room. You know, they hinted at it.

Someone in the audience was like, wow, dude, pool. They didn't literally say that, but they got really excited. Then they didn't even fucking use the pool. You just kind of showed up there. They've got a pool here. And then he was there for a second. They didn't even use it. So I would love to see more pool.

More pool. Yeah, they call me Tim Pool. I love pools. But yeah, no, I feel like the inevitability if you make a full feature sequel is that they're just going to explain things in a dumber way. That is the instinct.

That's my concern, I guess. I would like a sequel set in the year 2001 and they're in the backrooms and they finally escape the backrooms and they walk out and it's like the end of that Robert Pattinson movie and it's like oh shit

World Trade Center oh backrooms and that's how it ends So they escape the backrooms and they're on the top floor the world trade center yeah that's pretty good

that would be bold yeah no I feel like like he should just take it in totally different direction I feel like the sequel should have nothing to do with any of these characters

it should just be like a totally different maybe like the scientists doing their shit it should be like even be involved though. Just the company should be the through line.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, totally. You know, and yeah, we're definitely going to get a slow of these, you know. Like we're already, 10 million dollar budget, which is insane. And it's already passed 117 million as a recording. I feel like doing something like either a mini series or like some kind of anthology, like, it also gives the implication that like whatever story you decide to tackle, you almost have more freedom because it's lower stakes.

Like you're not, there isn't the same amount of pressure of like, this is the feature, like this is the sequel sort of, you know? Like I kind of, I want to see things explored with more freedom and less fear over like what it needs to be to satisfy that type of label. So I don't know. I'm concerned. I'm concerned. You can't call it back rooms too.

That's goofy. Bathrooms. Yeah, you kind of Backrooms Backroomses Backroomses Backrooms Backrooms

Bathrooms Feathing Pool All right Six out of ten for me It was good It delivered on its premise Could have been better

Some really impressive stuff Great debut feature Hope that Curry Barker Does some Cool Sorry Cain party Parsons does some, it's like we just talking about it last week.

I hope that Kane, Mr. Parsons. There's some cool stuff. Son of Jim Parsons from the Big Bang Theory. There you go. Nepotism everywhere. That one's a joke too. I echo the same score, actually, the three star with a like. This is a very high, like, three star for me.

Maybe would be like a load. seven on rewatch but I'm stuck in that position of like yeah I'd watch that again but also I had pacing problems with it and I don't know there are sections I'm not hyped to revisit right now but yeah this was good

a good first picture for sure excited to see what's coming next and hopefully they don't cock up back rooms here or whatever they wind up calling it yeah I'm going seven out of ten because I'm the nice one on the podcast you know

I'm the in my gluppshito era. I don't even know what that means. But yeah, no, I, seven out of ten for me right now, enjoyed. Very positive. Looks like things are coming up, glup shito. Things are coming up, gulp shito. Coming up, horror fans, horror fans are even good in the moment. Yeah, I wonder what lessons will be learned from this in the industry.

Hopefully, good ones. Things are shifting in the right direction, I think. I hope so. But do we feel like this is a bit of an over-hype moment that people are kind of like, holy shit, this is crazy, this has never happened before. Like, this is a special moment for sure. But it's like horror always does this. Horror always performs. Horror always makes a ton of money.

Also, it's not a non-entity either. Like, Backrooms is pretty well-known from like a certain demographic below, I think, like online. Totally. Totally. Yeah. That kind of stuff. And it doesn't have, it's not like. It's not like Fnaf, you know, where it's like, oh, Scott Cawthorne created this.

It's one of those. Didn't it just appear on 4chan or something? No one actually... It's a fortune. It owns it, you know? So it's kind of like an SCP thing. People are just obsessed with this kind of stuff. So it's not like...

It kind of is the same thing, but not. It's in a weird space with the like IP recognition kind of boost that it can get just off that name. Community made. I'd like to see Louise Ward direct a sequel to the backrooms. Sure. No, yeah, she's actually really interested in the Backroom's movie, but she's not seeing it until today because she was just at like con. So she just got back, so. Right, right.

Otherwise, I'd tell you what she thought. Backrooms is for everyone. I mean, I think Backrooms is, I mean, it's funny because it's not like a, it's like public domain, you know, like there, there's no ownership over the concept of backrooms. so you see like McDonald's doing all their advertising. Anyone can really make a Carlin's movie if they want. Is like fucking grimace like an SCP now? Like they were doing the weird grimace shake. Like they were playing into the grimace shake creepy ads now.

They actually really do have SCP vibes, all of them. Like Ronald, that's an SCP. They're all terrifying, actually, yeah. There's a reason why they stopped like putting them everywhere. They're bringing them back only for horror movie tie-ins. Sure. Way to go. All right.

Today we are talking about the year 1946. World War II has ended. Congratulations, everyone. We got through that. And now we are into a sad era of noir and everyone's sad because of death and all that. So this happened to lots of filmmakers, John Ford especially. And so we're talking about my darling Clementine, which is a very somber, beautiful Western, one of my favorite Westerns, one of my favorite John Ford movies.

It continues to just grow in my estimation. God bless you. Yeah, so I'm curious, you know, we'll get into like the more of the details of like how this movie came about. I'm fascinated with this movie in general. I love westerns. I grew up on westerns. So this movie's like a just special to me.

So I'm curious. I don't know how many like classic Westerns you guys have have seen in your life from this era. But what did you guys think of this? Yeah, I've been kind of intimidated by John Ford if I'm being honest. Like he's got like how many

how many movies did he wind up making? He's got like 147 credits on Ndb. just under the director section. A lot of those are silent movies that have been lost to time. Yeah, yeah. Still, tons of movies. Yeah.

And, yeah, I think I fit in this pocket where, yeah, it's a blind spot for me and I'm more influenced by people he influenced. Your Curacaoers, Spielbergs, Scorsese, whoever. But yeah, I thought this was a nice introduction to this year of the classic, Hollywood kind of Western, which is, you know, it's interesting because it is an osmosis kind of storytelling.

Like by the time I was born and started watching movies, it's like this visual language of how you communicate this kind of story had been like passed down generations at that point. So it is there was something nice about going back and seeing the kind of themes that was exploring and what especially you mentioned the World War II kind of angle that was what, uh, kind of jumped out to me at first was like, oh, this is like a very, this is like a response kind of to that energy post-World War II with this idea of like America being this kind of humble sheriff of the world or at least like that's like the cultural attitude and this, this idea of this town in the frontier that is like used as a way of kind of displaying this

tension of the old west and the new west and the idea of like taming people and having these duos of characters that explore this idea of like what america is at that point and it's it's very kind of uh mythical and i don't think it's like trying to be realistic it does feel like exaggerated and kind of different than the kind of neo-westerns we get now but um i dug it uh we'll get into it more, but I'm curious where you guys start off with this. Yeah, no, I definitely have not seen many classic Westerns. I would say like Westerns is a genre overall. I don't like go out of my way to see.

We covered the man with no name trilogy and, yeah, like what else? We saw Unforgiven. Have you guys seen any other John Ford movies? I guess this is my first, and it's weird because I wouldn't have expected that it would be. But then I looked and I was like, well, I guess that's the case. So, yeah, I don't know. I've got a few on my watch list, like Fort Apache even is. Fort Apache.

I mean, the searchers is the big one, everyone usually sees, or the man who's to Liberty Valance is another one of his. And those are like pretty late in his career too. I'll make sure that those are there. So, yeah, I, that, I, I, I was actually really impressed by the filmmaking. I was not expecting it to be so well composed. Framing cinematography, the lighting was fantastic.

And also the music was huge for me. Generally, you know, regardless of the decade, music isn't done that well. And my expectation or my, I guess, assumption when I'm watching, you know, old, old movies is that there's aspects that you just kind of have to like forgive for the time, like things are less common or less likely to be figured out for certain aspects. of it. But no, I was really impressed by it from a filmmaking standpoint. And I thought, especially near the end, I'll try to say the scene without spoiling it, but like, there's a really, really

great sound design choice where someone is like, let's just say there's someone being like operated on, I guess. And just like you hear the chaos of the, the loud environment. in the room that they're not in, but you hear that in the background and it still doesn't take away from like this atmospheric moment of like quiet and

like discomfort that these characters are experiencing. Like it was a nice, really memorable and impactful sound design choice. Yeah, no, that's a fantastic scene. You're talking about, yeah, thanks for pointing out the sound there. I mean, I'm curious, Adam, why you say that you maybe didn't expect it to have such, like, a nice composition and framing. Is there a reason why you had that expectation?

Just because that's my experience with seeing, the more that something is a movie that is, like, on a pedestal that everyone says is good, the more I'm, like, disappointed, it seems, especially when they're further back. Gotcha. I think like for me, like my like understanding and what I love about John Ford movies is that he is like just an incredibly like painterly filmmaker. Like just the frames, the compositions are just otherworldly just extreme, very classical but gorgeous, just extremely gorgeous blocking framing cinematography. I mean, the type of film they use to capture the clouds in this movie is just unbelievably. spectacular. Like the clouds have never looked so beautiful then. I've seen them in John Ford movies, especially from like the 40s and 50s. Fort Apache has the same thing in Rio Grande. Like it's just incredibly beautiful. And I think also like the compositions here, yeah, you guys are talking about like myth and that is a huge level of this. I mean, this is based on, this movie is based on a real life event. You know,

the gunfight of the OK Corral. If anyone's seen the movie Tombstone, you know, with Kurt Russell. Wyatt Earp. Yeah, I was going to ask what you actually knew about that, right? Because that's part of the story as these warring families. Yeah. It's like the inciting incident with the, how do you say their last name? Earp.

The plantons. I mean, a protagonist. Oh, Wyatt Earp. Earp. Yeah. The Earp family. But yeah, I was like reading about this Earp guy. Yeah.

Because of when he was born, he apparently, he like lived long enough into the 20th century to befriend Hollywood filmmakers. So, like, he could kind of be built into this, like, legend of the West. Do you know much more about that? Because that's fascinating to me. Like, that overlap period. It is fascinating. I mean, so much of what White Earp told and discussed, it's all fantasy and myth. And that's something that, like, John Ford was, I think, playing with. Like, this movie is total bullshit. Like, nothing in this movie actually happened. It's total fantasy. and basically every telling of the gunfighter at the O.K. Corral is total fantasy. I mean, historians try to dissect exactly what happened, but it's all myth. It's all fantasy, and that's what the Old West is. That's like this.

What John Ford was especially interested in in all of his movies. He's not, there's a famous line that is often repeated that happens in the man who shot Liberty Valance, which is kind of a dissection, like meta, dissection of his career in a way and the myth of the Old West where they say, when the legend becomes fact, print the legend. And that's John Ford's whole career. And that's also, like, he talked about and who knows if this is true, because he was a classic bullshitter, as a lot of those old, like Hollywood directors were. But he's like, oh, yeah, when we were making westerns back in the 20s, you know, Wyatt Earp would just show up on set and tell us. And this movie's all fact. He's like,

my darling Clementine, it's all fact, because White Earp told me this is exactly how it happened. So don't question me about it. And, but John Ford, like, earlier in his career, if you'll like, read about him, he'd be a lot more open about like, hey, this is, um, uh, this is what I was thinking about doing. You know, he was more of an artiste, you know, like you watch a movie like the informer from the early 1930s. It's very artistic, very expressionistic. And you can tell he's drawing on a lot of his inspirations from like silent German filmmakers like Murnau and Fritz Lang.

But later on in his career, he totally eschewed that, um, attitude with a kind of like gruff American, I make westerns, you know, I don't talk. about art. This is an art. And, you know, if you watch any of his old interviews that he did in, like, the 70s with, like, Peter Bogdanovich, where anyone's trying to ask him any question about his art, he's just, like, bullshits them and is extremely rude. But that's, like, that's what he's all about and the whole dealing with Smith. Anyways, well, you're talking about with Wyatt Earp. Yeah. No, it's all bullshit. And I've been to the OK Corral. Like, if you're in, if you grow up in Arizona, you go to Tombstone and you see what it's like. And it's

nothing. It's not beautiful. Like this, they, they built all these sets in the middle of Monument Valley, which is in Northern Arizona, Southern Utah. It's the most gorgeous landscape in the world. John Ford shot almost all of his westerns in Monument Valley or Moab, Utah, up in that region, which is just gorgeous. A lot of the Navajo there were employed, you know, to work on these films and like they just Hollywood would drive in and shoot the movies here. So, actual tombstone is pretty ugly and uninteresting, but they kind of preserve it as a like an old Western town and they do recreations of the gunfight at the O'K. Corral. But this movie is so weird because it's so uninterested in action and violence.

Like it is like, and the more you watch John Ford movies, it really subverts your expectations of like what a Western is, which we think of like gunfights and action. And we kind of think of Sergio Leone now these days. And like the revisionist Westerns have kind of taken over the prominence in our modern mind of like what a Western is. But, like, John Ford is not interested in gunfights. He's interested in dances and people walking together. And the way someone sits on a porch leaning in their chair, you know, like, it's these little moments.

And the way smoke sits in a room when an actor is reciting Shakespeare, you know, like, the way light, it's incredibly poetic. And when I think about, like, my favorite westerns, even my favorite movies of all time, like, this movie, like, I'd say Red River. by Howard Hawks is maybe like one of the greatest Westerns ever. It's one of my favorite movies. But I think this movie is a better work of art. Like it's just on a different level and operates in like this poetic function where you don't even need to think about the story. But like scene to scene moment to moment, it has these little grace notes that are just,

you know, breathtaking and that you don't see in most Hollywood studio filmmaking from this time period that we're all about story, story, story, story, story, story. you know and john ford was able to because of the production process like kind of like hammer in what he wanted to do with these movies and you could argue that this collaboration not really collaboration but he worked with fox and darrell of zanick controlled fox you know at the time and zanick was known as being like a really good editor and so a lot of people argue that for some of ford's best movies with fox you know the grapes of wrath and my darling clementine the long voyage home that these movies were really benefited by darrell v zanick's

editorial control that he would kind of cut out some of those more long poetic meandering moments. And this was Ford's last movie that he did with Fox before he went independent. He created Argosy Pictures. And his movie that he did right after this is called The Fugitive, which is based on a Graham Green novel. And it's totally poetic and long and visually, spectacular and gorgeous. But it was a huge flop because it's all Ford. It's all just moments, visuals, atmosphere. It's fantastic, but as a story, it's kind of dull.

But you can kind of get a better idea of who Ford is as a filmmaker when you watch the projects he made independently, when you see what he did outside of the studio system. Anyways, I'm going on and on. Have you seen both cuts of this? I've seen parts of the other cut. Yeah, yeah. There is like on the criterion release, they have a kind of reconstruction of what the original cut probably looked like. Yeah. But, I mean, just like worst quality is what I hear.

There's a couple of like shoddy looking scenes. And I think even they show like storyboards or something like that or just photographs of certain scenes and explain what was happening. But there was quite a bit cut out of the movie. I do think the final version is improved, although there is like a dialogue scene on a balcony between Doc Holliday and Clementine that is very expositional. That's just kind of like, okay, we need to explain a little bit more about the. relationship between these characters. And then famously, the final moment in the movie, I don't really think this is much of a spoiler, but like in the final moment, originally Wyatt Earp, Henry Fonda, he just shakes Clementine's hand at the end of the

movie. They don't even kiss. And apparently that evoked laughter from the audience who was expecting a kiss at least. Like, oh my God, we're just, he's going to shake her hand. Like, come on. So they inserted a shot of Henry Fonda kissing her very safely on the cheek, you know, nothing super passionate. But anyways, yeah, there were some changes. I think one of the reasons, so I looked at some of my IMDB stuff just to give myself a better understanding of my own thoughts and feelings, the comment I made about the cinematography. I think one of the reasons I feel that way about older films is because some of my points of reference being like Kubrick and Hitchcock, like there's films from them that I've seen where I know that noticeably like things aren't. And I'm wondering if it's from the generation of films or if it's literally just this artist, you know, not having. as much experience as their later films, I guess.

But, like, even in Passive Glory from 57, which I, like, absolutely love. Like, that's, I think that's, like, a 10 out of 10 movie. You know, there's sequences near the beginning where, like, the cinematography just isn't quite there. It isn't quite as clean. It isn't as perfectionist, you know? And also with Hitchcock films, you know,

the farther you go back, even, you know, like dial M for murder, there are things about it where it's just like, it does feel like aged to a certain degree. And so that's, I think, why I'm, you know, well, I look at a film like this that is not only like something that looks fantastic, but also really consistent. Like, it never had any moments like that where I was thinking about one particular scene being like, oh, I guess they just, you know, had to keep that footage and, you know, like it felt very well thought out and very experienced in terms of how it was approaching each scene. Yeah, I think, you know, it's interesting you bring up Hitchcock because it's like, I can't think of two filmmakers too diametrically opposed than Hitchcock and John Ford, where Hitchcock is all

about storyboard and building this, like, you know, he's the, to Palma before De Palma, he's like building up his stories where he even said that, like, shooting the film isn't even the fun part for him, you know, it's like it's all been figured out in the storyboards. We know exactly how we're going to edit and put it together where there are scenes in Psycho where, like, the famous scene where the guy falls down the stairs, where Hitchcock wasn't even on set. They just, they knew exactly how to shoot it because of the storyboards. A filmmaker like John Ford, he's not storyboarding the movies like this.

He was known for editing in camera so that he would film exactly what he wanted for every shot and not film like extra coverage of things. I mean, this is so crazy. It's so different from now how movies are shot where you got to film a million angles of everything. You can edit it, you know, make the movie in the editing. But John Ford was making it in the camera, you know, so that, and that was part of the studio system because it's like as a director, he didn't get to go in there and edit his movies, you know, 90% at the time. So it's like if you only give them exactly what you want to give them, then they have to edit a certain way. Intentionality. Totally. That's cool. Totally intentional. Yeah. That's fascinating. Yeah, I guess I agree with everything you've been saying, but what kind of made it work for me

outside of when you read like the description of the plot like an IMDB, it sounds like a standard Western affair, you know, after their cattle are stolen and their brother murdered the brothers have a score to settle, the Clanton family. But the way they actually, it's all the stuff in the middle of that that is way more interesting. Like it started clicking for me with what it does with the dynamic between Wyatt and Doc Holiday. The Doc was my favorite character, I think, because just putting these two like inverse

personalities that have this kind of... weird mutual respect for each other, even though they've got these completely different kind of backstories and are coming at their perspective on the same place from, yeah, completely opposite sides. But they can kind of like connect over a love of Shakespeare or, and just how that's explored and the way that's fleshed out like through the Wyatt kind of being this rougher, he's like a cow like hustler, right? He's like just moving cows. across the country and it's almost when he gets to the town he's like cleaned up by it and is civilized by it and becomes like this sheriff kind of figure whereas yeah the duck holidays kind of like the inverse he's like running from something he's got this illness um and it's just like the the subversion of like how on paper if you like imagine these characters interacting like it was like it'd be this big gunfight and it would go this way based on all the tropes but it it doesn't is like it's willing to kind of be a bit slower and indulge in what makes these dynamics interesting.

And it keeps doing that and it keeps it kind of classy and well made. And you mentioned the balancing on the chair shot. There's like the mirror shot as well that kind of, you know, as well as complaining about in backrooms where sometimes a visual or just way you depict a character in a scene can be all it needs to be to kind of express what you need to from where they are in that moment or where they're positioned. in the story or how they relate to another character and it's really quite sublime for that kind of stuff. That was definitely my, my favorite part of it was, yeah, specifically the Doc holiday and Wyatt stuff because there, I did also find a like dryness to the film. There was a section, maybe like 10 minutes in between the, towards the end of the second act, I would say, where I was kind of like, it was, yeah, it just felt dry, I guess. It was the best way I can put it, but it kind of won me back round towards the end.

I was constantly intrigued by how it was being presented to me, for sure. Yeah. I mean, the presentation was like the huge part of enjoyment for me. Like I wasn't like that really into the story. Didn't find myself connecting with like the narrative, but I found myself like throughout the entire experience just being able to like, you know, like him on. the fucking stool leaning back.

And also just like the, the fact that like these actors are doing those things for real and probably like minimal safety, you know, as he's in the barber chair, they kind of just let him like fall back and catch him. I'm like, well, if one of those actors didn't catch him, it'd be hurt, you know, just seeing the little time capsule shit.

Not to mention all the horses and stunts and all that. The horse stuff pissed me off. Those horses were not having. having fun. No, that's something you'll see, you know, so many of these westerns back then. Yeah, and like well into the 2000s. Oh, yeah, for sure. So many movies, yeah.

Yeah, the stunts. I mean, the movie is, and I'm glad that you guys like are seeing, I think, like, what is special about this movie. It's like the movie is what's between the plot. Like the plot, the movie isn't even that interested in what's going on with the story. It's like all of a sudden it's like, okay, by the way, Doc Holliday, he maybe robbed a bank and also the necklace. They found the necklace from when the brother was killed and we got to go figure that. But it's like it's all these moments that I love how the town feels so alive. Like one of my favorite sequences in the whole movie is after Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp. And then you have the drunk Shakespearean actor in that whole sequence of like, well, we got to get the actor back to the theater because like it's all these little things that. When John Ford, like, lets these moments breathe in some of his best movies, it's just, you feel like you're not watching a movie of that time period. Really, it feels extremely modern. And there's just this melancholy in this movie between the way, you know, Wyatt Earp wants Clementine.

Clementine wants Doc Holliday. And none of them are happy. They're all running from something or trying to get something that. they can't have. And everything is done through a sense of like duty. We have to do this. And you could almost place like a perfect World War II metaphor on top of this movie if you wanted to, you know, like Doc Holliday has to get back into marshalling,

not because he wants to, but because he was attacked, Pearl Harbor. You know, he has to get into the war and join civilization. And then he wanders off alone at the end of the film without, you know. And like, it's interesting to this like era of these filmmakers who, like John Ford was around like he was at D-Day like he wasn't on the first wave of D-Day but like they were all there

the Battle of Midway is like a very interesting documentary that it's a propaganda film you know but John Ford was there with his camera crew you know filming these things in World War II and they were that's crazy actually there's a great documentary on Netflix called Five Came Back which is about I think it's John Ford

William Weiler and Frank Capra and a couple of other of those big filmmakers of the time it's about like what they went through and experienced making propaganda films for the United States government and then how that changed them. And that period of, there's another companion film to this movie that I recommend you guys check out. That is also interesting called They Were Expendable, which is about PT boats in the South

Pacific. And it's about failure. It's about a failed mission. John Wayne is in it. But it's so fascinating because at the very end of World War II, you know, America's triumph, John Ford is making a movie about these guys failing at a mission. And like, it's such a, again, somber, sad story where you feel, especially in this period after, there's this great book called John Ford, The Man in His Films, which I recommend to anyone interested in John Ford's

by Tad Galaher. But he kind of charts the progression of John Ford's filmmaking. And this period is considered like a transitory moment when he makes, they were expendable, my darling Clementine and the fugitive to where he goes, okay, what do I do? Like, he's trying to escape reality. And the films that he makes after this are, he makes a ton of westerns. He makes The Quiet Man, which is a total fantasy farce, which is a great movie, but it's about like a total fantasy version of Ireland. And he's kind of sinking into myth and just ruminating and escaping reality in that sense. So, and it's not really until, like, the searchers in the late 50s and then they're in the early 60s with like, um, the man who shot Liberty Valence and Sergeant Rutledge and all those,

Cheyenne Autumn, where he's kind of like dissecting the myth of the Old West in more of a critical way. So yeah, this movie is just, it's so wonderful because I, and the best, the best movies to me are those where you can experience them almost as like a poem. And like, and that's not true of every movie, obviously. But it's like,

it's a movie that's not really interested in like narrative momentum, even though it has it there, it has the structure in the bones so that it feels like contained. It feels almost like this perfect little thing that within and between the lines, you have these moments, like the moment where when right after, right before the brother is killed, you know, when they first go into Tombstone for the first time, he says, bye, Virgil, bye, brother, why, you know, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, and he says all these things. And then it just lingers on his face. In this, like, kind of strange, waxy moment, he's just smiling and it just has this long fade-out.

And it's like these little things you don't see in a lot of movies of the time period. And I think that he was not like a modern filmmaker. Like it's very classical and old school, but it has this type of, I don't know, poetry to it that I just can't help being drawn to and exploring more and more. Like the more I see his films. Like he was a real artist despite how much he tried to deny it and tried to escape from that term. Like what he did in the constraints of the studio system is really amazing. There's so many masterpieces in his filmography. This is just one of them.

Nice. And me being able to talk to you guys about this at length is like such a, I can't tell you how fun this is for me, even though I'm just going rambling on and on about John Ford. No, I love hearing people talk about their passions. No, I'd love to hear it. That was what I was most excited for, as you hear you nerd out about it.

Yeah, it is my nerdy obsession. Yeah, I do wonder if there are, there probably are other movies of his that you guys would latch on to or maybe find more like connection to story wise. I think the searchers is one where it is like you see so much. I mean, it's taxi driver. Like the searchers is such like a foundational text for those like 70s filmmakers like Paul Schrader and Martin Scorsese and John Millius. Like the searchers is great. But it's also breaking at the seams. Like it's kind of like the myth is falling apart.

Whereas here, the myth is starting to like build. And another great one is Wagon Master, which is about Mormons. It came out in 1950 and it is almost just like all, it's like almost non-narrative. It's just all like images. It's really fascinating what he got away with. Yeah. Of course, there's the later period when he's like reflecting on. Like Cheyenne Autumn is more from like the Native Americans perspective.

Like this movie is obviously built on like a racist foundation of like, well, the Native Americans are. I mean, he even starts with. Charlie. Wyatt Earp throwing out the drunk Indian, you know, which is such a horribly like racist stereotype. That's just like Jesus Christ. Why'd you give him alcohol? You know what they do. No, totally.

And it is like this foundation of like also like Western cliche and like building. building on this like kind of unexamined narrative of like this is myth. Like we aren't even thinking about reality anymore. And, um, you know, I do think like John Ford kind of felt guilty about that later on in his career. Oh, okay, good. Um, there's a, a western he made called Sergeant Rutledge, which is unfortunately not like a great movie, but it's about a black cavalryman officer, um, played by God, what's his name? A great actor who's in other John Ford movies. But no, I mean, it's fascinating. And even you look at a movie like Stagecoach,

which is considered like kind of the rebirth of like the Western genre. Like people look at Stagecoach in 1939. It's a great movie. You guys should watch it. But it is like, people should think of it as like pulp fiction of the Western genre. Because at that time period in the late 1930s, westerns were kind of dead and like Passet. And John Ford made great westerns in the silent like,

Badman is a great silent era Western that he made. The Iron Horse was like a huge deal. But he made tons and tons of Westerns in the 20s where it was a lot more popular. But then he comes back in 1939. He makes stagecoach and it kind of revitalizes the Western for decades until like the mid-60s when it starts to fall off. But it's crazy that he was just kind of like remixing these tropes over and over and over again to various effect.

And Fort Apache is one that is actually very critical of. like American imperialism in the West. I recommend you guys watch Fort Apache because Henry Fonda, who plays White or up in my darling Clementine, he plays this cavalry officer or whatever who's like, I don't want to negotiate with the Native Americans. Like, we just need to like, he basically plays George Custer.

And it's kind of like a story of George Custer, but set in like, you know, Arizona or whatever. It's wonderful. I'm going on and on again. But any other, do you guys have any other thoughts? or feelings about this movie? Yeah, something I was thinking while I was watching it was, there's a lot of movies where I watch something and I feel like the main character,

like the hero of the story is something that is kind of like this strange representation of ideas of a time period of like what a hero is or what a main character is or like, you know, the role of like especially a male lead. should be. And sometimes I watch these things and you can kind of see echoes in it like the backrooms, you know, throughout time of just like then you get into these weird kind of like cringe lords trying to imitate that but not doing it very well. It's like the memory of of something that it's trying to recreate. And I just, yeah, I found that interesting, just that thought of, you know, because it's all like

weird archetypes and like this fakeness. Like as you mentioned, it's not exactly like an accurate version of history. But I find that part interesting. Like the idea of like what people find to be, yeah, like the role model or the hero or like what is cool

or what should I be like and how media influences people. people. Well, yeah, I find that double interesting through the lens of a period piece that was made in the 40s. Yeah, which to us, it's like a period piece. It's like, yeah, a hundred years day. So, yeah, the whole, the whole context of, yeah, the, it's like just after World War II, there's like an attitude embodied into the, the, the filmmaking, the way it presents itself. Like, I was reading that, about the entire movie. Like, that's how it felt to me. This kind of, yeah. reluctant but necessary sheriff and the way that was positioned in the story that was like really interesting to me from like a historical perspective um but it didn't kind of feel like a i don't know it didn't feel necessarily like a propagandistic to me it felt more kind of like there's a romance to it but it's not trying to present itself as if it's this grave reality or anything that was something kind of exaggerated there so that totally worked quite well for me and

yeah especially when paired with just how ridiculously well made it is something that really stood out to me were like the crowd scenes just how dense they are and like just the the range of performances and like costumes and everything that was so kind of like lively and yeah a lot of that personality came from that like seeing these little reactions to moments awkward moments in the bar and and just oozing the personality and the whole champagne moment and sliding stuff along the bar and the blocking of that is a lot of great

visuals and character moments like that. Yeah, all the actors look like they were having fun for the most part. Yeah. The gigantic, like, hyperactive cigar-smoking piano player was a fun vibe. I liked him. Yeah.

He didn't get a lot. of screen time, but when he was on screen, it was great. I mean, it's a funny movie. Like, there are, like, it's those good jokes. One of my favorite jokes in the movie is, like, when Wyatt Earp asks the bartender, Mac, he says, Mac, you ever been in love? Nope, been a bartender my whole life. Mutually exclusive.

I like that part, too. And, yeah, I guess one more thing about the filmmaking. Like, there was a moment where there was, like, a lot of commotion where it was like a fucking just dozens of people crammed into this room and like

what was it? They had like a bench or something that they were like carrying up but it was like it was a big commotion and I felt like the editing in that scene was like very very on point

like very fluid and smooth and like no points where it felt like there was any like conflict in the continuity or anything, which I also find to be like feeling pretty ahead of its time in that sense just based off of the other points of reference that I have in my experience. Yeah, it flows together beautiful. And I think that's because the intentionality of like, I mean, he's been making like, you know, silent films and all these films for so long that he knows just exactly how to edit.

in camera so that it has this flow, but also like the choreography, the blocking within the shots or, like multiple story threads will be happening or transferring in the course of a single shot. And it's not overstated. Like the camera almost never moves unless it's like tracking them walking on the patio,

but there's barely any motion in the camera. And all of, but it's still so visually dynamic. That's what's fascinating. You'd think a movie that doesn't have let the camera move it all. It's like this giant bar and how it's just like ramming into his gut, you know, and that he have the Clanton's walk in. And there's just so much changing of the just the choreography and the blocking on screen. It's really extremely well done. And like,

narratively it's just concise and like just really concise and clear storytelling that I admire, especially about like this film. But, you know, in terms of like the masculinity, aspect. What I got watching this movie, and I've seen this movie probably a dozen times now, watching this movie now, I got this feeling of like kind of disliking

Henry Fonda, Wyatt Earp, more than I did before. Maybe it's just the way his like, he's kind of cold and aloof through like the first half of the movie, just like I'm the law, you know, like I know what's best. He literally, he's like James Bond.

He's like, Erp, Wyatt Earp. You know, like he has this kind of aloof, cold nature, and that starts, what I love about the movies is that it kind of breaks this shell. And you see this kind of like sentimental longing. Like he is just like this longing, um, sad individual in a sense where like just the way he watches Clementine, the way he walks with her, the way he dances at the church. Like that's a whole set piece in this movie, just them walking into the church and then dancing. And it's so, mesmerizing and just the way he dances and like lifts his legs it's so goofy and there's

something and this is something that he did also with like young mr lincoln you know he did it's a famous ford movie that he did with henry fonda fonda plays lincoln and he dances very similarly so i think john for just had kind of an obsession with making henry fonda dance like that but like also seeing like the western type that he goes to like you in his movies you kind have either Henry Fonda as the sheriff for the lead in these Western films or you have John Wayne. And John Wayne is like, you could just, it's so fascinating that the archetype that John Wayne set up and the kind of role of the masculine type that he developed and invented.

It's kind of an invention that John Ford did. Like if you read anything about John Wayne's early career, like John Ford invented John Wayne. He invented how he acts and moves. and walks. Like, people would interview John Wayne and be like, he told me how to walk like this. He told me how to fling this cigarette. He told me how to do all these things, you know, and that was like a persona, you know, that he held.

And John Wayne, like, John Ford was not like an arch conservative. You know, he was very, he was pretty liberal. His politics are confusing. There's, you know, later in his life, he was like supported Nixon, but he was kind of woke. later. Anyways, it's, it's way too complicated to even digest just in a podcast. But John Wayne obviously was super conservative and like represented very pro. Like, you know, he made a whole, whatever, I'm not getting into this. Sorry, this is tangent, tangent, tangent. But the, the archetype that he set up between like John Wayne and Henry Fonda, where Henry Fonda is kind of like

this upright good sentimentalist and John Wayne, the archetype, he ends up driving it in. into this oblivion in The Searchers where John Wayne becomes a true anti-hero borderline villain where he is on... You guys got to watch John Wayne in The Searchers because he is like a menacing and terrifying racist in that film.

And it's just a really fascinating arc to this type that they set up together with this John Wayne and Henry Fonda like competing like masculine archetypes. And you see kind of that in the Victor Mature as Doc Holiday, which I'm glad Alex he said you like him in this film because I think he gives a great performance and his, he pairs so well with

the bromance that he has. Like this movie almost has like a queer subtext I almost want to like see there, you know, and there are, you know, there are, you know, people have made claims John Ford was bisexual and there are, you know, things that are out there circulating and biographical details I won't get into. but it's interesting the way his movies focus on male friendship. It's very, very tender and very, very sentimental.

I don't know. That's nice. There's a lot to get into there. Yeah. That's nice. Thank you. I guess if we want to do ratings off that, yeah, I guess it surprised me with the way it subverted that with its premise, you know,

Like just sounding like this revenge battle over cattle. And that's nowhere near as interesting as like Doc Holliday, tenderly watching a Shakespeare performance that he loves, like, completely locked in. Yeah, very unique stuff. I really enjoyed this. I feel like I've got to do stagecoach next because that's, it's been to my watch this forever. And that poster's always like, hide me down.

But I think I'd give this on my first watch, like a three and a half star, like a high seven with a like but yeah but I've still got so much more to delve into here I feel like I got into Westerns kind of later in my life it was never something as a Brit that really stood out to me that much until kind of like the late 2010s and that's just this whole world to explore yeah this is a this is a good one yeah good wreck

seven out of ten right Thank you for the recommendation. Love hearing you heard out about shit, and it's good for me to slowly but surely knock off more classic things from my watch list. No, and I'm glad you guys gave a shot and enjoyed it. I think there's so much to be gotten from, like, John Ford's filmography. There's so many great films. And, yeah, I mean, stagecoach, but also please watch the searchers at some point.

Yeah. I mean to me it's 10 out of 10 I think it's just a it's one of my favorites but Nice Not to say it's a perfect movie in any way But it's like what is perfect between the The imperfections

It's just You know Something unique about it Yeah thanks guys for letting me nerd out Of course Go on and on Thank you That's fine

Hell yeah Is it time for questions Can I just pee a moment Yeah you know what I have to too but I was going to like hold it. I was too, like, I can. All right, BRB. All right, question time.

Cool. Let's see some questions then from the Sardonicast community. Head over to the suggestion thread over on the subreddit if you want to ask questions for future episodes, just like, aka Benzu did. I can start us off here. Question for everyone, but maybe especially for Adam. Male slash male romance seems to be a huge part of book talk,

often with a readership that is largely straight women. With the success of the TV show heated rivalry, I'm curious. How you think about that dynamic? Do you see any element of fetishization in it, or is it not really different from how people engage with other romance genres? Are there things readers and writers should be mindful of when it comes to representing gay relationships? How does that strike you?

Where do you want to start with that one? I mean, there's always going to be weirdness when you're, making something that is like, I guess, like four queer audiences, but also trying to be four non-queer audiences. Like, heated rivalry is something where it originates from like a book series or a novel, I guess. And like watching it, the entire thing feels like really, really fan fictiony, where, you know, in premise it's like, oh, these two hockey players are, like in a romantic relationship with each other even though they're like on different teams and that no one can find out about it or whatever

but like there's no you can tell that the writers and the filmmakers like have never seen a hockey game in their entire life and like it's not about that like it's just yeah you know it's it's literally just a vehicle to have almost like a twilight-esque like ooh it's so tantalizing

it's it's something that is surprisingly pornographic for something allowed on like television. I guess it's just streaming service. It's a crave original. But also not pornographic enough to be porn. Right? So like it's also, it's in this weird in between.

Yeah. In terms of like how characters are represented, I don't know if like, I'm not one to get offended over, like, you know, straight women wanting to see two dudes or whatever. Even if that qualifies as fetishization, I think that it would be healthy for human beings to, like, get over the fact that everyone has some aspects of fetishes or kinks or sexual desires or interests. like if it gets to the point where it's dehumanizing then sure that's a problem but that that's not really a problem with the show that's a problem with people's attitudes or or a lack of perspective from people you know in their own lives who may be watching the show um but yeah i guess you know one of the reasons why i love castration movie is like it's not it doesn't give a fuck if straight people are are watching It's like it's not packaging it in a way where it's concerned about like how characters are represented and, you know, whether something's going to come off is like misunderstood or like poor representation. But whenever you see something that does have money behind it or, you know, the implication is that it's made for a wider audience, then those things are like inherently needing to be considered. Depends on the project, but yeah, like there's weird tropes and and

cliches, I guess when it comes to that kind of media. Yeah, I guess that was something for me that in the early 2000s when I found six feet under that really spoke to me was that it had this It had like a gay character in it that It wasn't like a big deal really like it was to the character that they were gay, but it just treated like every other character And it was like and I just remember feeling at that time like why the gay people exist Like why is it so difficult to find like their perspectives or stories in like anything? So yeah, I thought that was like cool for a show like that. But still is like weirdly rare to this day. Yeah.

Like it's it's people are just so like weird about it. Like it's just hyper-pilitarized I guess. And people just forget like yeah, this I'm not gay. I just want to hear like, different perspectives and see as many different voices as possible it is like an empathy thing and like you can humanize people

and see all these different like perspectives like why would you not want to see that as someone who like enjoys artistic expression so I find it very funny that as a result of the success of heated rivalry

famous writer Don de Lolo's sexy hockey novel is getting reissued called Amazon's that he wrote under a pen name. So that's all I know about heated rivalry is that Don DeLillo's novel that he wrote under a pen name about hockey is getting reissued because of the success of it

anyways. It's very silly. I would recommend it. I think Nadia likes it. She's a fan. Great. Awesome. Yeah. It's like it's undeniably entertaining Everybody loves it It just won a bunch of awards

At the Canadian Screen Awards Also Nirvana The Band of the show of the movie Shout out Nice sweet Not that anybody cares about that award show I don't either Just Um

Okay so what do you guys think on this one From Jojo Jackson What are your thoughts on the new emerging Subgenre Incell horror Or Consent Horror What? What?

I've not seen this before, but I did see Fuck, what it was such a weird phrasing. Like, I can't keep up with the way people speak anymore. It was like, relationship slop, relationship horror slop or something. It was like, because this happens every time something gets popular out nowhere, like with obsession lately, being just such a like runaway success. And then people cross their arms and like, okay, what's everyone talk about now? Just stay off Twitter.

You can't just be a thing. It has to be the sign of, trend of something. Yeah. Stay off Twitter, everyone. Yeah, has to have a specific, like, categorized name, though, as well. Yeah. Yeah. It can't just be like a firm he didn't, like, vibe with us.

No, it's because everything's consent horror now. I saw someone on Twitter today say that the count of Monte Cristo was lit slop. I like, everything's a thing. Everything's a slop. We go to retire. Slop now already. I think it's funny. I did for a minute, but now like just everything is slop.

I guess everything kind of is slope when you look at it like with enough detail. Night of Cups was low-key Malik Slop. Just saying. Fucking good movies are just quality slop. Yeah, I don't know if there's enough evidence to really call it an emerging subgenre. Who cares? Like, it doesn't even mean anything. What are we talking about?

fucking did you guys see the like they they somehow this was considered like a legitimate conversation where people were saying like some people are accusing Kane Parsons of not having directed the movie and there was a gross director oh yeah

a few different projects I've seen have had that accusation because someone on Twitter just said yeah yeah there's no nothing behind and they get enough retweets and then like fucking like who's the guy that played the scientist at the end Mark Duplaz he like

responded like people people were responding about it as if it was like a thing that needed to be responded to which is just so fucking funny and silly it happens like every other day now I saw it that was like

a bunch of articles were going up because it was like someone just spread the rumor that Seth Rogen was dead and then These assholes were like, he's not dead. Okay, post-truth, I guess, whatever. Yeah.

Your world is whatever you fancy it being at the, based on your emotions right now. Why would you need to come up with like an explanation for a young person directing a movie when it wasn't even out yet when that rumor, like. Well, one of the funniest things that about like I saw the people tweeting about this was like, there's no way a 20-year-old was able to do all of this himself. The movie wasn't out yet. because it's called having a crew and having a cinematographer. It's like, oh yeah, he didn't make it himself. They watched the Michael Jackson movie and thought that's how art was made.

You just one guy just spawned it. Yes, exactly. Kane Parsons just in a studio just being like, oh, yeah, sounds good. Yeah. It's just so like conspiracy coded. Everything has to be this like grand conspiracy. Like it's always that. Well, when the president is a part of a pedophile ring, it kind of.

I'm just so tired of everything, guys. Like, it's just the internet is just, it's so worthless. Like, there used to be a ton. Let's all just go to sleep. Let's just take a nap. It's just a waste. It's just such a waste of energy. Your kid has the right idea.

Nap time. Yeah. We could all learn something. We could all just, you know, stop tweeting, start napping. That's what I like. That's a good slogan. I like that. Yeah.

That could be your album title, Baby Jake. I'm not. It's not happening. There's no Baby Jake. Stop trying to make Baby Jake happen. Yeah, stop trying to make Baby Jake happen. What about Baby Adam? How about that?

I don't give a shit. Okay. It doesn't have the same kind of like rapa zing, you know. Yeah, baby Jake. It's the single syllable. Yeah. That sells it. Baby Adam sounds like you're talking to a baby

I thought John Mulaney had a special called like Baby J or something I have no idea I don't know what's happening anymore yeah no he does it's called baby J literally so you're just stealing from John Malaney that's probably why it sounds good to you that's probably why yeah well um Jake Wyman has something that might look good to us and he hyped towards David Robert Mitchell's it follows under the silver lake upcoming dinosaur movie with Anne Hathaway a new

McGregor called the End of Oak Street. Yeah. Oh. Is there a trailer for anything? It was eight years since this last movie. A trailer came out, yeah. I wonder if I should watch the trailer. I did have a quick click through it.

I was, yeah, I was not expecting it to be this. Because I'll watch whatever he makes next. Yeah, I mean, I love it follows. I love Under the Silver Lake. I was a bit just surprised by like, I'm just hearing the title of this movie and like, from like behind the scenes or whatever, like watching it like take shape. And then it's like, well, it's like this dinosaur maybe. Yeah, I had no idea.

Like, we need a dinosaur movie to undo whatever Jurassic Park has become. Like, I'm down for a good dinosaur movie, especially if it's, like, scary or cares about something. Is it Cloverfield connected? That was the impression I got. It's produced by JJ Abrams, so you never know. Okay. That's the one thing that makes me skeptical. Yeah, that's scary.

I haven't seen the trailer yet. But I'm looking at the poster, producer, J.J. Abrams, I'm like, eh. Is this a one-for-them situation? You never know. You've got to get a director jail. Yeah, I never know how much to give the producer, how much credence to give it. Well, he's ruined things before as a producer.

There's a handful of things he's ruined as a producer. Yeah, it's definitely not a name that excites me at this point. But yeah, weird concepts. It's like a under two hours long, pretty big cast. like yeah it'd be cool if uh yeah it's kind of like creepy i don't yeah no i'll definitely watch it just because i like the director he's he's two for two out of movies yeah exactly he's made and i've enjoyed right does he have the feet uh the myth of the american sleepover i did not watch so i haven't seen his first feature i guess oh right yeah

i haven't seen that fake fan fake fan yeah um all right um um um um um So this one then from Tad Strange 2. The boys and Invincible constantly get compared just because both are R-rated superhero shows. I find this inherently dumb because they have completely different intentions. One is a satire where while the other fully embraces the genre tropes but with a mature twist. What are two movies, shows or games that you think get unfairly compared just because they have one thing in common? Parasite and no other choice. Oh yeah, well

That's a real I'm getting boss baby vibes For Korean cinema That was That was exactly what that was Yeah that's crazy People who have only seen piracy I guess what pops into my head

Is like the The idea of like a battle royale I guess The way that's always It's always compared to the hunger games I guess That's always like Treated like it invented it

I guess. It was the made it popular. I guess it's in the name. Like Battle Royale owns Battle Royale. Yeah, exactly. The genre. But you have to be a weird freak. Yeah, I remember, it's like a manga or something.

I remember reading it in a film. A little bit more hardcore than Hunger Games. But anything pop into your guys' heads of like a weird, just needless comparison. And apples and oranges kind of, it wasn't even trying to do that. Yeah. I mean, I gave mine just the Korean. Like, that's the big one for me. A big recent one.

I could think of some others maybe, but. No. I can't think of anything. It'll come to me later. You know, it's funny. I mentioned this in, I think, my frozen, the YMS Frozen about the 2010 ski lift movie, where the comparison, I think. you. The comparisons that critics have wherever there's like a new horror movie, they're like,

we'll do for blank what Jaws did for swimming or will do for blank what Psycho did for showers. And you just see it like spammed everywhere. Every like the the range of your cinematic language seems to be very narrow. If you can only compare it back to those two things, And it's just like, they're all, every time you see it on the poster, it's a movie that has no comparison. It never, like, somebody did it for the visit, M. Night Shyamalan's a visit. We'll do for blank, which is like, okay, well, you're just saying that was a big and influential movie and that's it. Like, there's no reason for you to bring up that name. We'll do for Mandalorian what Groku did for Rata the Hut.

Rada Mitchell to Hutt. Yeah. Just comparing things to Spielberg, actually. Like the amount of times I've heard there, the next Spielberg. Oh, my God. We got a new Spielberg. Even Am Night, they would say that. Yeah, yeah.

I'm so ready. Are you guys excited? Disclosure Day. Yeah, you know what? Steven Spielberg is going to tell the world that aliens exist for real this time. I am now, yeah. Yeah, to distract from the Epstein files. The conspiracies are already starting of like he knows something and he's using this movie as a way to, like, teach people.

Like, it's got to be a hinged. Dude, last alien movie the guy did was literally a, Iraq war propaganda made for the Pentagon. I wouldn't even be shocked if he's literally just trying to distract from the Epstein files at this point. Wait, what? Hold on. Wasn't it? What your officer?

Fucking, uh, the fucking stupid, uh, war of the worlds. What? That wasn't Iraq war propaganda. That was it not. Didn't we have a conversation about this? What? I don't recall.

Oh my God. I'll have to go into it. I thought aliens were in Indiana Jones as well. You'll have to go into it. Yeah, no, there's a big in like the second half of the movie like the

I'll, this is a conversation for another time. All the fighting the alien stuff and yeah. Yeah. I don't think it's that one to one. But you guys,

I'm going to be, look, I'm just warning you guys, disclosure day comes out, I'm going to be an annoying Spielberg dick writer. Just get ready. It's going to happen.

Sure. Yeah, I'm curious how it comes together. I mean, yeah, It looks terrible and I'm going to laugh at it and have fun. It looks terrible and I'm going to have a great time. There's a, okay, yeah. There's things that look terrible that I would not be interested in seeing in theaters. This is something where I'm interested in seeing in theaters.

The trailer looks bad, but everything about the concept and everything about what I know about Spielberg makes me think, okay, there's probably going to be something here that I like, but the trailer looks bad. Yeah, I like the concept too. but yeah all these CG like animals like walking around with kids

it was like what are we what are we doing here Stephen I guess we'll find out soon enough she she sounds like

she's making popcorn in the trailer it's kind of funny that that shot it looks very silly

it could be a dumpster fire and I'm I'm here for it I was there for BFG big fucking Gabeo. So was that. I also watched that one, weirdly enough.

Why did I do that? I think that was before I was done with Spielberg in my head. It's weird because a couple of his best 21st century films are West Side Story

and the Fablemen's. So like, he's, our goat is not washed. I mean, I know you don't like Fableman's, but I think it's a masterpiece and I love West Side Story as well.

Okay. Should we, wind down with a couple more here. Let's do this one from pomegranate nearby. Question for the South. Since you guys have discussed Doug Walker thoroughly on several episodes of the podcast,

I'm curious what your thoughts on James Rolf, aka the angry video game nerd. I felt it was interesting to bring this question up as James has been an influence for many YouTubers, including Doug Walker, going as far as to collaborate with him on several occasions in terms of his style and production values

of his early work, as well as the fact that he actually studied filmmaking, and has even said he considers his reviews to be akin to short films. Somehow I completely missed the angry video game nerd. I've seen a couple of his videos, but I kind of saw the downward stream of people that were obviously inspired by him. But I was never really into him, specifically. I've seen way more Doug Walker videos. like angry Joe or whatever.

Yeah, never really interested me that much. Funny, yeah. I know nothing. I mean, I really know nothing about him. Oops. Yeah.

He seems like a nice, nice guy. Yeah, I did my frown independently and then realized later that all right, yeah. Yeah,

he seemed to make like an enormous impact in that space and also he doesn't really correct me if I'm wrong. He doesn't really have the same kind of baggage that Doug seems to have. People seem to kind of like, love and respect him in a different way. I know that Dan Olson, right, Dan Olson did a video about him that I didn't quite understand. But that's basically all I know about Mr. James Rolf. Yeah, sorry, I can't really contribute. Sorry, James. Sorry. Yeah. Hey, Adam, how do you feel

about Indianav already stealing your frowned face for the film obsession. I don't mind when I inspire people. It's copyright and fresh. As long as it's to do good in the world. You got to have ownership over your brand. You got to, you know, you can't let people steal your copyright. I should trademark frowning. You should. Fine Bros. That shit. Yeah, I'll make a big video about it and everybody will love that I did this. So good. That was a fun time. Classic.

Okay. So let's wrap up on this one then from Exiled Outcast. We've done like variants of this question. I might do a slight tweak on it, but let's see what comes to mind. Seeing this has been over a decade since 2016, oh my God. What do you consider to be the modern cult classics of the past 10 years? modern cult classics of the past 10 years yeah i would say just like broaden that to of the past 10 years

what are the kind of like culturally important or films that maybe have stuck or you think are going to stick beyond hundreds of beavers castration movie they're run of the band the show the movie skinnamarink anything i'm associated with Skinnamarink Sure Yeah

I think Skinnamarink was like a better version of what backrooms was trying to do in some aspects different very different But like if you're doing horror just like tone you know Like Skinnamarink was more creative in that sense I feel I'm trying to think of others yeah something like I feel like I feel like time is going to be very kind to I know it's recent badington I think like every day that passes something about that film it's just like

it's building up firmly to something that I feel like is going to age very gracefully Eddington is eternal it's the 2020s movie I mean yeah it's the new idiocry yeah

kind of although a lot better than idiotic yeah no literally yeah much for it as a movie I say yeah but how do you define modern cult classic because there's like

I just got to look through some of my lists being appreciated now and known for that like in everything everywhere but then there's also something like a blade runner

of like the 80s where it kind of like bombed but over time has become blade runner that's the problem is that you

you can't like know it until it's later you know I can classic has to come originally the Jennifer Lopez movie that she made

that was about her love for Ben F like called This Is Me dot dot dot now. I think that's going to be a cult classic. For sure. I've thought of recommending it because it is so fucking hilarious. You should do it. Especially that they got divorced again right after it happened.

Oh, that sounds awesome. Yeah, it's atrocious, but it's great. The documentary about the making of it is actually really funny and better than the movie. It's kind of like a Fitzcaraldo hearts of darkness. Oh, my God. Oh, cool. That sounds incredible. Yeah, that does sound good.

So there you go. There was one in my head and then I got rid of it somehow. Oh, one cut of the dead. Yeah, that's a good one. I still have not seen that. You should. Don't look too much up about it. It's incredible.

Okay. Yeah. I think you get a kick out of that for sure. I even think the the trajectory of these 28 years films because they're not like doing that well right now. Oh, they're doing the next one, aren't they? Didn't that get Greenland?

Yeah, I saw that. There's some activity on that, which is good. I think Danny Boyle is making some moves, which is awesome, hopefully the young fathers come back. But I feel like, yeah, especially like Bone Temple, like bombing so hard, but everyone seems to love it that sees it. That could grow with time, perhaps. bombed so hard

did it bomb so hard I think so yeah on his budget yeah shit yeah we're getting a third

what about Amelia Perez that's a cult classic it yeah happy Pride month Amelia Perez yeah

we could revisit it Amelia Perez mentioned during Pride Month box This is a win. This is a win for everyone's favorite pride film. Big fucking Gables everywhere.

Well, speaking of pride, I could do my wreck if you want to. Hey, you're doing something not here to know. I'm doing something. I often forget with the timing of like, oh, this is going to be then, what's going to be going on that month? I actually remembered this time. Oh, yeah. And I've chosen a film from 1996.

I don't think any of us have seen. bound by the I knew it, I knew it as soon as he said, 1996, nice. Cool, no, I haven't seen it either. This was something it was meaning to. The only film of theirs I haven't seen. Great rec, thank you.

Yeah, I think this could be interesting. Yeah, excited to watch this. Bit of a Wichowski retrospective. I've always been curious about it. All right, yeah, if you don't want to be spoiled for bound, 1996, directed by Wachowski's, watch it before the next episode comes out.

These episodes come out every two weeks. You can listen early by going to sardonicast.com. Sign up for premium. It's only a few bucks a month. Also, patea.com slash sardonicast. Also, you can click the join button below on the YouTube thing. And you get it ad-free on all of these platforms, but on YouTube, you have to click on the posts tab

if you want it to add-free, okay? It's just so stupid, but whatever, it's YouTube's fault. It's functional. You just have to remember to do it. Or turn on all of your notifications, and you'd get a notification for when the post is made. Just to hit the bell is the real problem. It's functional.

Yeah. It's functional. Happy Pride, happy Glepschito month. Happy big fucking Gabeo. Thanks for listening, everybody. Bye. Happy Rotter, everybody. Bye.

right