Sardonicast - Sardonicast #38: Far From Home, American Movie

Episode Date: July 17, 2019

Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/sardonicast Website: https://sardonicast.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Sardonicast Twitter: https://twitter.com/sardonicast Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/sardonicast Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sardonicast Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/9vG73zS Alex's Twitter: https://twitter.com/IHE_OFFICIAL Ralph's Twitter: https://twitter.com/ralphsepe Adam's Twitter: https://twitter.com/2gay2lift Fan art: https://old.reddit.com/r/Sardonicast/... https://old.reddit.com/r/Sardonicast/... https://old.reddit.com/r/Sardonicast/... Timecodes: 00:00 - Intro 12:41 - Spider-man: Far From Home (SPOILERS) 35:14 - Keanu Reeves 42:55 - American Movie (SPOILERS) 1:15:00 - Q&A Ralph's recommendation for next episode is Eraserhead (1977).

Three, two, one. Hello, everyone. I'm Derek Savage, and this is Cool Cat Loves the Sardonic cast. I was just sitting there for a while. There's another one that I kind of wanted to do, but it required more practice. All right, well, next time. I'm a scary one. From your movie sex.

I'm Ralph from Ralph the Moviemaker. YouTube.com slash Ralph the movie maker. Yeah, and I'm Alex from I, H.E. And we got to guess. Who are we joined by? I'm Evan from Adam's brother. Oh. Hi, Evan.

From my mom. The Diving Bell Social Club, I guess. And yeah. Why are you here other than nepotism? I think that's it. I think that's it. I'm here to talk about some movies. And yeah.

Had the screening go for American movie. Yeah. Oh, it was great. So I guess you guys probably heard on the last podcast. We invited a bunch of people out. I've got a bar in Montreal called the Diving Bell Social Club. And every Tuesday we do a screening, usually some deep cuts. And we did American movie last week, which is one of my faves.

And two people came out from the podcast. So that was pretty cool. So hello to Ian and to Nicola. Two people that you know. I think they had a good time. Two people that had enough social skills to make themselves known. Yeah, that's true. That's true. There may have been some people on the wings. There were probably dozens more that did not have any social skills whatsoever.

Yeah, it's very scary going out. Yeah. It is. It is. I was impressed that anybody, you know, took this podcast advice and came out to a strange bar of some dark stairs to somewhere they'd never been before. So, no, I think they liked it. They hadn't seen the movie before. It was cool. Do you guys have any questions you've been dying to know, some answers you've been dying to know and questions you've been dying to ask about... I'm here. I'm an open book. This man who got born from the same mom that I did, but earlier. I've got one.

Yeah? As far as we know. I want to know if Evan has any embarrassing stories that stand out in his mind about that. Oh, great. You've got to. Oh, great. You've got to. You can't have your brother

and not do that Yeah, I guess so Man I think we should have had a You know What can I say What can't I say? I can't I say a waiver

I can edit out anything It doesn't really matter Yeah, you'll just cut it out This whole segment Won't be in the episode Yeah I don't know How deep should I go

However Whatever you want What is appropriate Okay Let me see. Let me just pull up my list here. I keep it on me. I can get my Google spreadsheet. Not much.

I mean, there's one of the earlier videos that Adam has made. I won't see the title. I've been wanting to see it for 10 years. It's a masterpiece. But he says it's under lock and key. I think you might have thrown it out. So maybe with enough social pressure. Peer pressure on the podcast.

You did? Well, I mean, like we talked about like, old early cringy videos that we made and stuff and I was like yeah we made some in like junior high high school just a bunch of dumb skit videos and school projects some of them are so bad that I will never publish them and bad not even in a funny way like in a sad way 20th anniversary retrospective never happening sorry well okay we no I don't know the it's been interesting watching him kind of grow from we had like this projector in our basement and we used to use it as like a makeshift green screen.

We would just like project an image on the back. And even though there was shadows and stuff, we're like, we're in a forest. And so, yeah, that was kind of cool. Embarrassing stories, though. Like, I don't know. I feel like I'm the more embarrassing person. Right. He kind of keeps it close to his chest.

I don't know. We used to, I don't know, stalk people together. That was kind of weird. What? What are you talking about? What did you make me do? He doesn't like to admit it. What are you talking about?

You wander around at night and, you know, follow people. It was weird. He convinced me to do it so many times. Oh, yeah, sure. I don't think you're being serious. I feel very uncomfortable about it. No, I'm not being serious. This is ironic.

There's no way this is true. No, just nothing embarrassing. Just like a lot of brother shenanigans. I don't know. I convinced him that the archery house back when we were kids was like turning into a jack-in-the-beenstock beanstalk. I pulled apart a bunch of pea pods and vines. I was like, man, it's the beanstalk.

It's growing. It's magic. Only to lead him up to give him the prize, which was a bag of pop rocks. I don't know if you guys have that. There was like a popping rock. That was a different day. That was completely, I know exactly what you're going to talk about. That was a completely different event.

Oh. I filled it with sand. Yeah, you stole my pop rocks and you replaced it with sand. And then you were like, hey, let's have a chugging contest for pop rocks. And mine was sand. And my friend was there. And you and him were both laughing at me. And I went inside.

Yeah. So no, nothing embarrassing. Nothing embarrassing. We used to play a game called Lost Puppy, which now I look back on it. It was kind of weird. We would just like roam around the basement. We'd be like, you're the lost puppy. And I'm the owner.

Oh. But you can only bark like a dog because you're the puppy. and so who knows and the rest is history maybe there's some weird Freudian shit that's it I remember when you cut open a carrot and put

hot peppers in it and then told me to eat it what? Yeah there were but you know I've changed yeah no you're you're

you're a good person now but when we were younger it was Kind of like, Reese from Malcolm in the middle is the closest thing I could relate to. I liked the frosted tips. It was like diabolical. Ski-jump haircut. I was just lashing out.

What's the age difference between you guys? Almost two years. Yeah. Okay. Oh, wow. And still perpetually jealous that I showed Adam how to edit on Pinnacle Pro one day. Oh, really? God damn.

Yeah, I remember. I think the advent of YouTube, like Lonely Girl and Renato, I think like, what, 2006? Be like, Adam, man, you got to get out of the house, man. You can't just be on YouTube all day. You got to make something of yourself, man. And cut to me like, hey, can I borrow some money? I'm in the real world. So, no, very proud. Very proud. Thank you. Where do you guys align in like your movie tastes then? Would you say you've got similar taste? Yeah, I would say similar. Clash on some things. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I went through less of a, like, I remember

Adam was really big into like slasher shit. Yeah. Probably in like, I don't know, 2005, 2006, like all of the Freddies, all of the Jasons. Yeah. I remember, you know, I remember my mother being quite concerned, you know, after like the sixth hour downstairs of like, I'm watching Texas chain so massacre. Again. But no, other than that, no, we've all got, I mean, we've got very similar tastes. I'm less of a slow cinema guy. I don't know, my attention spans a little shorter.

I need it fast, man, and furious. Yeah, no, I mean, the Holy Mountains is also one of my faves. You know, the similar directors are kind of up there on my list. I don't have, I don't know, I try to set aside enough time to watch good stuff. I don't really have time for the flops that I know are fun to review. That's the thing. The beauty of those reviews is you don't even have to watch the movie. Yeah, depending on the movie.

I don't need to see snow day or what? Snow Ice Ice Day? Frozen spider. Oh yeah, Frozen. I don't need to see that movie anymore. Ice spiders? I've seen it. Ice day.

Okay, yeah. I wasn't sure which movie is called Frozen. Yeah. But yeah, no, similar taste. I've been to, I went to Tiff with Adam. We went to Fantasia Film Fest here in Montreal together, under the Silver Lake. Yeah, so all that stuff is... Yeah, that's my kind of stuff.

I just wanted to know about your favorite films and stuff. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I wanted to know if your taste is similar. Yeah, I think they are. I mean, like I said, I've watched a lot less movies. I like a good Malik guest back in the way, you know, especially recently with Climax. I watch a lot of documentaries. I feel like if I'm going to set aside like a couple hours to watch something,

maybe a little shameful. But if I don't already think it's going to be good, then I probably won't watch it. Yeah, there's a lot of things that aren't worth my time also. Like the new Lion King. Oh, what? I thought you loved the Lion King, man. This isn't the Lion King, though.

It's just more real. Yeah. How about your taste in crap, like Cool Cat and Neil Brink? Do you like all that stuff? Yes, I love it. And in fact, one of the movies that Adam and I watched probably 20 times when we were kids, actually there's two that stick out that I feel like are good flops. I don't know if they're a good fit for this podcast,

but I'd love to see some more kind of exploration on it from your perspective. But obviously rat race, I think it's fucking hilarious. Not even in like a cringy way. Like, yes, there's a lot of that. And maybe it's like my nostalgia boner kind of just. just like, you know, twitching a little bit. I think it holds up, aside from the opening credits, which are the most obnoxious, irritating opening credits I've ever seen.

Yeah, it's so, so annoying. But the rest of the movie's pretty funny. Star-studded, Oscar winners. But the other one is a, I think it was a John Landis joint, right? The stupids? Yeah. The stupids. The Tom Arnold and the kid from the kid that was Alfalfa.

And I think, Max Landis is in it for a second, too. Yeah, he gets white paint on him. Oh, please. Yeah. If you have the chance, if you're looking for some flops, for some, for some cringe vehicles, the stupid is really good. Yeah. Another one that, uh, that we used to watch that does not hold up.

It's, uh, the Gumbi movie. Oh, Jesus. It's terrifying. It's terrifying. All I remember about it is like marble tears. I think I need to revisit it. The dog. They're like in a rock band.

And every time they play music, their dog cries, pearls as tears. And then there's like these weird robots that are like, wow, this dog's crying pearls. We could be rich here. And they kidnap the dog and turn it into a robot. And it's crazy. The Gumby characters are weird enough. And all their voices are like this, Gumby. And but they make like claymation.

Like people is so unsettling. It's weird. It's such low frame rate. And it's just, it's, it's scary. It's, it's, yeah. It's good at being, it sounds strange. Stop motion's always creepy as hell. Yeah.

Like, even, even fantastic Mr. Fox. Like, I could imagine being, like, too young in that movie freaking me out, especially when they do that scene where the character's eyes get all beady. Yeah. That little callback thing. Yeah. That looks a little unsettling. So we're going to, we're going to talk about a film that we saw.

You didn't see it, but I'm sure you won't mind. of being spoiled for you if we do spoiler talk Let's do what do you want to spoil Spider-Man? I'm gonna talk about Spider-Man I guess we kind of have to I don't know Things you can't really talk about Yeah that's most of the plot is the spoiler

Yeah yeah So spoiler warning Spider-Man far from home This time It's not in America Did you guys see the last one? Of course I did homecoming right Yes homecoming

This time it's not in America. All these marvelous, beautiful locations that we don't see because the director doesn't know how to pull back the fucking camera. Yeah. So you might as well film the entire thing on a soundstage in L.A. and it would look no fucking different. Why was this a part of your marketing campaign? Well, that I disagree.

I think it would have totally looked like a set, like that scene from Aquaman, where they're supposed to be in Italy. It seemed... This, it felt like Italy, it was just the camera did not show anything. It was just on, I'm like, why aren't you highlighting this location? These like amazing locations. The location itself would do the work for you and you'd have a beautiful shot. But he doesn't, like, I mean, you're not allowed to have personality when it comes to your framing or cinematography.

Disney wants their standard coverage of everyone. Two mediums, maybe a close up, a wide, and that's it. Get the fuck out of it. That's my biggest problem with it. I feel like this one and the first Spider-Man, well, Spider-Man homecoming, both of them, just like really, really bland, boring, cookie-cutter cinematography and shot composition. And even kind of bad in a way, too. It's not even just standard.

It's like everything is way too close. And immediately after I watched that movie, I started watching like The Banishment by Andre Ugandan siev or whatever. And I was just like, holy fuck. I can breathe, you know? Like every single shot in that movie, I'm like, this is further back. This is a wider shot than like anything in the Spider-Man movie I just watched. Like, this is exactly what I wanted out of it.

Like, it didn't need to be that extreme. Like, Spider-Man doesn't need to be an art film or anything, obviously. But like, why even go to the scenery if you're not going to show it? I want to see the location. I want to see where you are. These Tom Holland Spider-Man movies are like the inverse of the scenery. Sam Ramey movies in a way. Yeah, yeah.

I connect a lot more with the story and the characters, but it's the presentation that really holds it back. Exactly. There were some scenes in Far From Home that did push it a little bit with the villain, of course, being slightly more interesting. But it's such a half and half, like every time it gets to a point where it's just characters talking, that to me is when it said it's worse, because it's always just like really simplistic, shot, reverse shot, kind of basic stuff like that.

Which you can just see it's part of that. comedic style they're going for that a lot of American comedies do where it's just let's just sit the camera down and see what kind of happened exactly yeah it's like it's a superhero movie I don't know it's not epic it's not epic anymore especially when comparing the

cinematography is creative it's like a CGI shot exactly visual effect it's all the computer people doing that any shot that's filmed in real life is like yeah again like the standard Disney blocking but that I don't

want to be so negative on the movie right off the bat because I think we don't like it. Yeah, I enjoyed it a lot. Man, but when did you see it has tissues mainly technically. How many days has it been? When did I say it? July 4th, I saw it. Yeah, July 4th. I saw it six days ago. I saw it on Tuesday. America's birthday. Yeah. And like, I enjoyed it. I had a fun time. It was kind of funny. There were some parts I liked. and after coming out of the movie I was like that was decent but I really hated how Blaine the cinematography was in a couple scenes

and then just like over the course of the next four days or whatever just slowly leaving my memory and I'm like what did I really even like about this movie like it's just the jokes it's like some of the jokes were funny and and like some of the character resolutions

and some of the places that the plot went were satisfying for the overall Marvel cinematic universe. But that has nothing to do with the filmmaking. And that's not going to resonate with me. That's not going to stick with me. I'm going to forget about it in the same way

that I forgot about the first Spider-Man homecoming. I can't pinpoint a single shot from that movie and visualize it. It's not there. I can remember what the characters did and what happened to a vague extent. But I don't remember anything about the movie. You might as well

just told me in a different format. Could have read a comic book. It would have been more visually interesting as a comic book too. Yeah. I think, no, I think for Adam, you're just as a rule, you're less invested in this universe. And I think part of what makes this film so interesting to people is how it is directly like dealing with the events of the previous film and kind of building on that. I liked that aspect, the world building aspect.

Yeah. But so you didn't connect at all with the plight of Spider-Man, his journey in the film at all. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say I didn't connect with the journey or the story or the characters in any way because I did to some extent for sure. But that's not what I value out of like the craft of filmmaking, you know? It's like it could easily just be a different. Yeah, I think that's hard to.

I think that's hard to accomplish too. I don't think it was like cleverly written in any way. I do. Really? Yeah. How did they do with the fact that it's post end game? That's what I'd be interested to know. Yeah, I mean, the beginning of the movie, they have this like kind of parody

I movie or whatever a slideshow, like in remembrance of all the people and blah, blah, blah, yeah, the school news has their presentation. Really shitty, like Getty images and stuff. And it's kind of funny. I love that part. It is. That's something that had a style to it. And they're talking about like, oh, yeah, the blip happened.

And they actually addressed the whole five-year gap. They're like, oh, man, they're making us redo. this year in school, even though I'm like, I was already halfway through the year, and they're making us start over again. Fuck. Yeah. Some kids are five years older.

There's one kid in their group who's like five years older and is like a handsome, like jock kind of guy now. Yeah. Which was pretty funny. I liked that that part of the opening. I think, I feel like the first scene. So like before that,

there was a very short scene with Jake Gillette Hall. You don't want any part of this. And it was so fucking janky. It seemed like it was plucked from the trailer and just throw it in the movie and then just immediate hard cut like what? Like it was so weird and out of place. Did you feel that way? I totally felt that way. Exactly.

You don't even remember it. The very, very beginning. No, it's like they plucked a scene out of the trailer. It was like the, you know, the big thing is destroying some shit and then Jake Gyllenhaal literally quote from the trailer, you don't want any part of this. And then hard cut to black. And then we see the student news thing. happening? Yeah, it's before that. It's like right before that. Oh, that opening little teaser. Yeah, that wasn't great. Yeah, it felt like a teaser trailer. It wasn't like a scene.

All of Jillen Hall's acting and the corny, like, villain stuff, I thought was actually kind of brilliant. I like, because they were totally making fun of it. Yeah, I like Jake's always great. I've always liked, I've liked Mysterio since I was like a little kid. I've known like Spider-Man comics and all their villains and Mysterio is one of my favorite kind of ones because he's not actually like a villain he doesn't have anything he's all a trick it's all like a fucking illusion what is his super power and I think that's hilarious he doesn't have one he lies he's a it's a big show and I think that's awesome he's like marvel's version of scarecrow basically from kind of except way goofier it's he's very corny and he's a very corny character like there's a

poor there's a whole section where he just literally explains his entire plan to the people he planned it with. It's like exposition down your throat, and it's hilarious. I think it was totally self-aware. The issue is the filmmaking doesn't convey the tone very well, so you don't pick up on the camp unless you're really paying attention to it. But the Sam Ramey movies were way better at communicating that tone than this film is. And that's where the biggest issue is with this whole thing.

But I think the script and the material is still there. I think it's pretty funny. And I think Tom Holland is great. I think the whole cast is great, basically. Yeah, the side characters are really fun. The whole cast is pretty enjoyable. The Mary Jane equivalent is actually like a character. She's not like a fucking...

Yeah. You know, like the old Mary Jane. Yeah. She's like a human being. You're like, oh, okay. She grew on me a little. I found her a bit annoying. And then by the end of the movie, I was like, oh, she's like, she's just really awkward.

I like that. Yeah, she's supposed to be a lot more. a character, you know? Yeah. It's not that I think the movie is bad. I don't think it's a bad film at all. I think it's okay. I think it's all right.

But it's just like it's, it's so disposable. It's so disposable just like so many Marvel movies are, just exactly like the last Spider-Man movie that I, well, the Spider-Man homecoming. I hate how many of them there are. And I hate how I have to specify to this, to this degree, which Spider-Man film I'm talking about. I remember enjoying that one when I saw it too But now I just like I Nothing about it resonated with me

Like nothing stuck with me at all I remember Birdman was in it Like Really literally Birdman Well I can't Yeah I mean it's it's just I can't Nothing there's nothing about it

The Falcon Michael Keithson right There's nothing about it Okay yeah birdman as big robot birdman There's nothing about it that connects with me, you know? Yeah. Right. Well, Spider-Man as a character

has always connected with me, so I've always enjoyed these movies, even when they're awful. Yeah. I connect with the character, too, but, like, just the filmmaking is just so disposable. The filmmaking itself is very bland, yeah. It's literally just, like, watch it and then be done with it. Like, there's nothing... I'm not going to get anything out of a second watch. I'm not going to

get anything more out of it being like, oh, yeah, look at all these details here, and I appreciate how they framed this, and and the symbolism and blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, it's just, there's nothing about it that's beckoning me to return to it. And that's just... If you think about it as just economics, it makes so much sense for Disney and the directors.

Like, no... I mean, you are the minority in that, you know, you want to see memorable things in your movies and good shots, but no one is not going to see that movie and spend the, what, 20 bucks for IMAX 3D or whatever it is to, you know, it makes sense for them to spend a little less time and energy on it. They know they're going to make their money, which is kind of sad. Yeah.

Parts of it feel very factory made. I don't think that means it's disposable or garbage. I didn't say garbage. Yeah, I know. When I say disposable, I don't mean it's garbage. I mean, you're just like, you're done with it. Yeah. I think it could have been better in that way, in the filmmaking perspective.

But that it has plenty of merit, I think. Alex, what were you going to say? no i i can see what you're saying um obviously because it's been a long-running marvel issue but i think there is slightly more to it there are there's plenty of scenes i remember from homecoming and and from far and in far from home i think they're not completely you know hopeless in terms of that kind of thing i think they do capture the spirit of the character and they realize that the best way to bring him to the screen and have him well, Spider-Man is at his best when he's doing the balancing act of sort of being a student,

but also having the responsibility of being Spider-Man. And I think these films have really done a good job of portraying that aspect of it. I think a lot of people enjoy that kind of thing. When you compare it to other films in this genre even recently, like Aquaman and Dark Phoenix, and they're all like loud CGI cringe fests, they're all, they all got to save the world and everything's blowing up, and there's a large CGI battle. And the Spider-Man movies are very scaled back and they focus more on characters and comedy.

And I think that makes them stand out. And it makes them much better than most of this shit. So I commend them for that, too. And the subtle commentary in the film was fun as well. Yeah. I enjoyed that aspect of it too. Yeah. Mysterio's whole...

I would say, but it's like spoilers, I guess. We already have been fake news, basically. He's about manipulating the truth to the point where no one can believe it anymore. Yeah. And that's kind of something going on in society right now. Yeah. With the news and with the president.

Yeah. It was very fitting and subtle in a way. Not too subtle. It was very, it's still Spider-Man, so it's a little corny. But it wasn't like beat you over the head with it. Yeah, it didn't overstay its welcome. It wasn't exactly subtle, but it didn't like, it didn't really hammer you over the head with it. Did they get annoying?

Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of these films that gets annoying. It wasn't, it wasn't obnoxious. And yeah, big, big spoiler warning. I love that they got J.K. Simmons back for Jameson. That was the best post credit. That was an awesome mid-credits.

I loved the post-credits. Those two things were probably my favorite parts of the movie, where the mid-credits and the post-credits. I was like, I love where they play Spider-Man, where he ended up. And, you know, I'm not completely uninvested in the story or the characters. So, Spider-Man being like, oh, shit, now people know who I am. What the, you know, cut. I love that that happened.

But it's just, it's still nothing about the filmmaking. And every time I think about, I can't say that for every part of the story. I can say that about bits and pieces of the story. They've successfully managed to get me interested in seeing the next film, obviously. But there's nothing about it that, like, watching it a second time that'll get more out of I can't say that any

bit of it was like well filmed other than some cool animation in those manipulation sequences you know the drone sequences and stuff exactly but that's like outsourced it's like handing it to somebody else it's like yeah it's still a part of the film but like it's just it doesn't

it just seems too standardized at this point too there's some issues with the plot too there's some issues with the plot I think also there's like that whole section where the Russian it's not Russian it's like a shield lady sorry I was watching stranger things I have Russians in my head oh yeah but there's like she tells Peter take his clothes off and then a guy walks in and takes a picture of him and then leaves it was like the most

contrived thing I was like what the fuck was that yeah in the film for sure that that that whole part was like totally there was only there so they can introduce the drones like the I think there was a bunch of stupid ship, but yeah, there's definitely parts in the film that are like that that drag it down. The resolution to the bus scene, hey, look a goat, jump up out of the foot. Come on, you could have ended that so much differently. And there was no real reason why he couldn't just say like drones deactivate or something. Like, come on.

It just felt so convenient. You know, like, oh, fuck off. It just, a lot of it felt super forced, super forced. But don't think it was a bad movie. That seems just like a classic comic book scene for me. It's just stuff like that. It's just too cheesy and not in a way where I felt like it was super self-aware about it. Yes, it doesn't take itself very seriously.

Yes, it is one of the more like comedically toned Marvel movies for sure. And I would say the comedy worked better in this than like the first movie, I think. Yeah, I think the first movie was funnier than this. I think this movie kind of has too many characters that drag it down. The teachers were a big part of it too. And not that I don't like them, but they were constantly cutting to them. So I prefer the first one And Hannibal Burris was in the first one too

Oh yeah So bonus points for that Hannibal Hannibal Burrs It's just I I want more Like Ariel in the Little Mermaid

I want more And I'm not getting it From these Spider-Man movies I wish it would get a better director To It doesn't matter Because like It doesn't

I think it does matter a little because the Taiko-Ko-a-Titi movies. Let's get Edgar right. Oh, wait, they tried that, and then they wouldn't let him do what he wanted. And so he left. It doesn't matter. But James Gunn and Ta-Ko-Ititi clearly made more interesting films than most of these Peyton Reed or whatever. The Rousse's as well.

The filmmaking. The Rousseau's have also done something interesting with it. Guardians of the Galaxy is much more interesting than Spider-Man movies. And Thor 3, too. It's because they got good directors on. If you got a really good director on it It'll get through all that shit Get through all the studio made nonsense

All the hurdles they make you jump through Yeah But that's all this is really needing is that And a tighter script Yeah Yep And that's that What would you give it?

We probably all gave this the same rating too Did you give it like a six out of ten? I did and then I recorded my quickie And then now it's a five Oh Five okay It's slowly being Thanos snapped out of my brain 50% of the time every day. Like, there's just so many other more important, more interesting movies in my life that I don't have space for it in my memory.

And it's just going to completely disappear like the first one did. Well, three out of five for me. I thought it was pretty good. Could have been better, though. Yeah, I enjoyed it a lot. I gave it a seven. Oh, wow. It's on the border, though.

I think it could change when I rewatch it later when it comes out on video. It was pretty much aiming to be like a three out of five, which is, you know, not the best quality. I wish it stood out a little more. But at the end of the day, it was trying to be entertaining and it was. There's quite a few people that hated it. You got a lot of comments, like, I hope you hated the new Spider-Man movie so that I can be a little justified in my opinion.

I don't think there's anything to hate, really. Yeah, it's like if you've seen the first one, It's not that different in terms of its issues. It's the same issues from the first one, more or less. Yeah, really. Some parts that are stupider. I haven't looked into it much, but is what's the, does anybody know, like, what the Marvel plan is now at this universe? Spider-Man's Tony Stark now.

Line up. Sure. Yeah, he's, they're like, this is the most likable one. We're going to make him the Tony Stark. And that's exactly what they were pointing at throughout that entire movie. It was like, no, Tony wants you to be the one that carries on his shit. And he's like, you know what? Even though I really wanted to be a part of the Cool Kids Club, the entire rest of the series,

and I was just begging to be included. You know what? At this point, I've changed my mind. Here you go, Jake Gyllenhaal. You could do it. Oops, it was a trick. Yeah. Dang it.

That whole scene is so goofy. I don't know. The next one. That's it for this. I think. I'm looking up the less now. Yeah, so break for a. Isn't it the Black Widow movie next or something?

Oh yeah. Yeah, which is crazy because she, oh, I don't know if that's a spoiler. Yeah. It's a pretty cool. But at this point, I mean, we spoiled Spider-Man. And if you've seen Spider-Man, you must have seen Endgame because they mention it in Spider-Man. If we're in the Spider-Man spoilers, then I guess technically it's the same universe. So just make sure that you put the timestamp after this part.

I'll put the timestamp after this part. this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She died. That was funny, too. My dad didn't see Endgame and, like, right off the bat. Bam, bam, bam, bam. Captain America, dead. Black Widow dead. I know. It was a division dead. I showed three of their pictures right at the beginning. He's like, oh,

I guess that's it. I guess that's over. Does he care? No, he doesn't get me fun. Then why would he be watching the new Spider-Man? Yeah, he's, because it's Fourth of July weekend. He's like, I'll see Spider-Man. I don't give a fuck. He didn't even see the last Spider-Man. The last one he saw was like the Andrew Garfield one.

Nice. The good one, number two. He got shorter. That's what I'm saying. I'm counting my blessings with these Spider-Man's because at least it's not that. At least it's like a fucking awful, just like emo, dark, remember Electro and fucking the rhino and all those villains? Green Goblin played by Dane DeHan.

It was just a nightmare. Man. Like, now we actually have fleshed out villains that are fun. The best part of those Spider-Man movies was in Under the Civil War. Silver Lake when they referenced. That was great. Garfield as Spider-Man. Yeah.

You know what the amazing Spider-Man too did that we're going to get to see again because of the new Lion King? A fantastic collabo between Hans Zimmer and Farrell Williams. They're back together for the new Lion King. Really? Yeah, they are. Ferrell Williams is doing part of the soundtrack and so is obviously Hans Zimmer because he did the original soundtrack.

I just can't wait. But now Ferrell Williams is a new song. helping out. I don't know. I think that he's just going to make little modernized touch-ups to songs that don't need any changing and make them worse. I think that's what's going to happen. You can already hear it a tiny bit in the trailers. Okay, so I found some future Marvel films that are going to come out. They're making the The Eternals movie. I don't know what that is. Okay. Nobody knows.

What the Eternals? Right. Yeah. Shang-she? What the f. It's like, so that's like an Asian-led one. So that's going to be like the one that panders to China. Okay. Guardians of the Galaxy 3, which is going to be good.

I'll see that one. That'll probably be the one I see. Dr. Strange 2. Black Panther 2. Probably Captain Marvel 2 at some point. They haven't announced that, but of course they're going to do it. I guess, do we want to go into the film discussion or do we want to talk about Keanu Reeves? Well, what happened with Keanu Reeves?

Yeah, what's just counting thing, man. I just want I just kind of wanted to talk about how everybody loves him just like It's not I don't I don't hate the guy I just think it's kind of Funny that he is kind of the new Jennifer Lawrence where like everybody thought like oh She's just like a real person and there's much more evidence to suggest that Keanu Reeves is a Very nice humble Yeah, loving caring man and he's now the internet's boyfriend He's been super famous for way longer as well than that

Exactly. He knows how to handle it more. Like, Jennifer Lawrence became like a star, like, immediately when she was very young. And I can see how that could, like, contaminate you and make you kind of a C word. Yeah. A Catermanage. Like Keanu Reeves is like, you know, mature, you know, he's been in tons of great films and he's an accomplished actor. And it's like, what isn't there to love about the guy? He's been through a lot of shit apparently, too.

Yeah. Yeah. He's like lost, what is it? Yeah, I mean, he was friends with River Phoenix who died. That's true. And then, yeah, he had like a stillborn daughter, I think. And then like his partner or wife was killed in a car accident and sister had leukemia. And yeah, geez.

He had a dog and some Russians killed him. Yeah. And then he became a Superman. and shot a bunch of people. He slapped a horse's ass. That's kind of weird that Superpunk 2077 or whatever it is. That's a weird.

That seems weird. For him to be in a game? Yeah. People do that all the time now. Yeah, I guess. They're mo-capping the actual voice actor, which is cool. But I don't know. It seems weird.

I was really stoked. I'm still stoked for that game. Yeah, I'm excited for that too. It's weird. It's just some guys. It's become, like, respected to mocap. And, like, these actors who give motion capture performances are respected as real performances. Yeah.

At this point, you can capture so much detail. I think it's incredible. Yeah. So, hopefully we see more of that. It's only going to go up from here. Yeah. Did you see that really shitty Eli Roth movie starring Keanu Reeves? It's basically like, it's basically like a porn.

Oh, yeah. What is it called? What? was it knock no I think that was what it was called it wasn't like a port it was like a fan fiction it was like the first half of the movie is like

oh we're just too lonely girls and we need a place to stay you want to touch us like it was so so so bad and annoying and then his performance in that movie at the end like it's got the funniest ending I'm pretty sure you can find it on YouTube

the ending of that movie and just like ooh it's so painful this sit through. So I hope they capture every detail of his performance for cyberpunk 2077. If he's in the right role, he doesn't do a bad job, but like, holy crap, some movies, he really embarrasses himself. Yeah, depends. The one where he's doing like a British accent, the Dracula one? Oh, I didn't. The Dracula. Yeah, that was. Oh, you got to find that. I brought the bastard there. He's like talking like that. It's like, oh my God. I think he's with like Anthony

too or something. There's like all these other amazing British actors around them. No, it's just funny. I feel like people, Keanu Reeves used to be kind of like the butt of the joke of bad actors in Hollywood. Like, what was it? Yeah, she was about nothing I think he was in or

but uh, the lake house. He used to be wo guy. With Sandra Bullock. With Sandra Mark. Look up on YouTube. Search up the lakehouse. Kiano Reeves sneeze. Look up him sneezing in that movie. It's great. I mean, yeah, I'm sure he's a nice person.

I just think it's, it's, I'm always fascinated whenever there's this like hype train, this like bandwagon, no matter what it is where it's just like so unanimous that it starts to feel like. What do you think comes first? In this case, like, what do you think comes first? The bandwagoning based on the fact that they're kind of coming back and doing more roles or do you think it's more of like a, you know, viral marketing? kind of thing where it's like he's coming out and doing this stuff so let's hype him up let's create some other accounts and i don't think that it's fabricated because i've seen even before that like right now it's at its peak for sure right now it's like full force but over the past he's in john wick and john wick is probably the most responsible and toy stories so the media have and toy stories so the media

have sent me on to the forefront but yeah even before that point yeah he's got a character in the new toy story. Even before that point though over the past like I don't know at least three years like there would be a post on Reddit every I don't know four months being like Keanu Reeves takes the subway like normal people or like

He gives his seat up to somebody who's pregnant yeah he just stood up and gave his seat to some old pregnant lady or something like yeah there would always be one of those like every once in a while but now it's like I don't know just during E3 it felt like it was like

every single day and I found that kind of funny. Nothing wrong with it. It's just part of that group with like Tom Hanks and Ryan Reynolds where they just, the internet just loves them for whatever. The internet loves Tom Hanks? They do. He's a nice guy.

Yeah. Yeah, I'd say he's in the like nice guy group like Keanu is. I haven't seen as much of it. It's just the Reddit circle jerk as usual, you know. Yeah, this is true. Maybe I should just stop going on Reddit. Yeah. Maybe that's my problem.

Let me see you just roll my eyes every time. you just see it there's always just the top rated posts are just this I've just discovered this thing and it's the greatest thing I've ever seen in my life

Upvote to agree This is the great Yeah exactly yeah It can't just be this thing's good That's to be No this is the greatest thing Of this ilk ever made Wow

Decided already Yeah It's like why don't you let it breathe In your head a little Yeah exactly You don't even remember it in a week Turns out All right

To conclude What would you have Keanu Reeves out of ten? Oh, definitely a five out of five. Yeah, I'd give him a woe out of ten. I'd give him an epic sneeze out of ten. Do you think that's air you're breathing out of ten? Matrix was his best role for sure. Yeah, probably.

Matrix is a great movie. Although John Wick is coming up there. We'll see. We'll see how many John Wick movies there are. John Wick revolutions. Wait, revolutions. The John Wick. sequels are certainly better than the Matrix sequels.

So, yeah, that's true. Got nothing on Animatrix. So, we watched a film that we're going to discuss. It was recommended at the end of the previous episode. Spoiler warning for this film. American movie. It's a documentary. I think it's possibly the first documentary we've talked about on the podcast.

Absolutely, yeah, I think it is. very interested to talk about it. Yeah. Yeah. Very interesting. It's like a whole different thing. It's a whole different way of talking about a movie. Yeah.

Yeah. It really is. I guess to describe it, I know it was my recommendation. It was more or less Evan's recommendation because he was the one that told me to watch it 10 years ago and I never did. I was looking for an excuse to just finally watch it. Do you want to describe the film? Yeah, sure. It is a tale of.

of Mark Borchart, who is an aspiring filmmaker, trying to make his, what he figured at the time was his magnumobus called Northwestern. He, you know, for many reasons, most of which financial decided, I've got to make Colvin, which was his, you know, his horror film. You know, it's Milwaukee. So, you know, it's funny, you were mentioning this. I don't know if it was on the last. one of the one before.

But the kind of northwest United States accent is very similar to kind of like Canadian, rural Canadian accents. So they sound Canadian to me, but no, they're from Milwaukee. And yeah, he borrows some money from his uncle and it basically follows the day-to-day life of the creation of this movie. And there's a couple lines where they talk about, you know, in order to make a movie, you've got to just like drag all of these people out here who don't. I want to do it.

So it's a lot of him just like on the phone with his friends being like, hey, you want to, you want to be the cameraman or you want to be an extra in my movie, Coven. Especially if you're not really paying people. Yeah, exactly. And it's beautiful and it's sad. It's hilarious. It's like one of the most quotable movies of all time, in my opinion. And it all just like rolls off this guy's tongue.

What do you want to do with your life? Suckdown peppermint shnaps try to call Morocco at 2 in the morning? Yeah. That's senseless. That's what happens, man. Yeah, it's great. This is one of my favorite documentaries, so I'm glad it was recommended. It's definitely the one I've watched the most.

I've seen at least like 10 times. Yeah, I fucking... Like you were saying, it's hilarious. It's funnier than, like, mockumentaries that are trying to be funny. It seems like it would be. A lot of people think it's fake. You could tell me it's a mockumentary, and I would believe it. You could tell me that these are characters and not real people.

It reminds me a little of, like, Fubar. Yeah. especially Mike. You were saying it's hilarious, but it's also kind of inspiring to see like this guy's passion for his work. I'm kind of sad as well. Yeah, well, the way he's making films is the issue because he has like his mom holding the camera.

This is not how like a 30 year old man should be making a film. He needs a crow and shit. And on top of it, you learn he has all this other stuff going on. Like, like I think a halfway into the movie, they introduced he has kids. Yeah. And he was like, holy fuck, you have to support kids. You're barely making any money. Yeah, what are you doing?

He works at like a, yeah, he's like a custodian at a cemetery. They were like struggling with drugs. Right. Yeah, and one of the best lines is they asked the kids. They're like, hey, do you like movies? Do you want to make movies like your dad? Like, no. And they're like, what's your favorite movie?

And it's like, six-year-old kids like, apocalypse now. Yeah. The horror. It's funny. I thought the director just kind of disappeared. I guess I didn't look it over, but he's actually been doing a lot. He did the director of this documentary. Some Netflix stuff.

Yeah. Yeah, of the documentary. Yeah, not the character. Chris Smith. Chris Smith. Yeah, he did the Fire Fest. Yeah, he did the Madeline McCann doc on Netflix. Like, yeah, he's definitely a good documentary filmmaker.

Yeah. There's nothing like flashy about the style in this in any way, but everything is purposeful and the tone is very good. and the editing is very good and like the comedic timing of everything's pretty great too. Yeah, that was especially good I saw. If I were watching this with no context of this documentary filmmaker making other projects that are well made and successful,

I would have just assumed that this was just one of the guys' friends. Like he was like, hey, I want to make it behind the scenes thing? But no, this was an actual documentary project. This was like, oh, I want to tell a story about, this kind of passionate filmmaking with nothing about, you know, this character who has this dream. And I want to tell a story. And obviously, American movie, it's a part of the title. Like, American dream sort of concept for this.

I think it worked out really well. I wonder how he found him. Yeah, that's a good question, man. Yeah, there's a point where he's talking about, like, he's literally working at a funeral home, like putting up and down flags and vacuuming around graves. and driving around this nice neighborhood He's like, man, I'm never going to live like one of these guys, man I had a moment where I was just

I was told to clean up human shit Somebody shit all the walls Somebody shit all over the on the toilet And I stood there for a minute And it took me a whole minute And before I started cleaning the shit I thought to myself man I'm a guy who was about to clean up some other guy's shit

In about a minute He says, uh Still going He says man a lot in the film Oh yeah I didn't even It's more than 150 times. Yeah, that's what it says on the IMDB trivia.

I didn't really clue into it until after I saw, like, just on the IMDP, I was looking up trivia, and it's like he said, man, 151 times or something like that. And I was like, oh, okay. Like, I didn't really notice it at first. And then I watched his short film, Kovin, with that context in mind. And it was like, every second, it was like, three per sentence. I was like, holy shit. He's been doing this the whole time?

Like, he's just doing this in characters that he's written for himself, too. Do you guys see in the credits, Mike Shank? He did all the music. Yeah, Mike Shank did the music. So all the guitar parts in the movie is just like... Yeah, I thought that was really good choice. Yeah. Mike Shank is like the best part of the movie.

Oh, yeah. 100%. He's my favorite. His story about his, like, LSD trip or whatever. We get to the hospital. The way... The way he talks sounds like a person making fun of that way of talking. the way like his

his constant little oh yeah totally totally it's all genuine but like he has this he has this like uh disposition of just like this this really like half closed eyes kind of goofy smile like he's a little baked or something all the time yeah he's just very soft spoken

so uh I mean uh was uh loves a lot I did a bunch of LSD oh yeah his laugh he ha ha ha ha It sounds like someone making fun of that kind of thing. And then he tells these crazy stories. Yeah, he's so funny. He's talking about breaking the windows in the car.

He's like, that was pretty cathartic, right, Mike? Yeah, totally. Do you know what cathartic is, man? No. Yeah. Hey, do you want to make sure everybody has their gloves on? Hey, does everyone have their gloves on? Okay.

He's so funny. One of my other favorites was Uncle Bill. Uncle Bill was great. He was my favorite character. it's all right it's okay it's got something to live for Jesus told me so so

and then watching that in the short film which I was shocked yeah I was totally unusable they can't use any of that and then sure enough he did in the first 30 seconds of Colvin yeah so good something that was also interesting too

was the you know obviously this guy is like against all odds trying to make this flick and then you get to like the editing portion of it right And so we're talking about, you know, pre, you know, Windows Movie Maker and Pinnacle. The guy's going into, you know, he's shooting it all on film. He goes into like a university. He's literally cutting it up.

It's like this, you know, for what it's worth, he knows how to splice film together and, you know, mix it with audio. That's crazy to me. Like, you know, there's no kind of second takes. Like you do your ADR and like, I hope it works. Yeah, he was shooting on film too. So there's a lot of that issues with that shit. So much footage was wasted just setting up shots. Like, we're burning through this film here, Mom.

Am I in the frame? Oh, there's the frame. Oh, I see. Yeah. Well, there's that whole issue with the frames where it's 23 frames instead of 24. They fuck up somehow. So they have to go back and splice in frames. Oh, no.

And that sounded like a nightmare, too. And that's something like you don't have to worry about, like, today. But the way he explained it was funny, too. The frame's supposed to be like this. big and it's fucking this. No one pays to see this. It's like that was ridiculous way of explaining it. I was impressed when they showed at the end there, you know, there's like a lineup down the street for his film.

Yeah. I was kind of expecting it to be, you know, he gets the first screening and there's like 20 people there. But it's kind of, you know, it's like a little bit of that heartwarming ending where like, you know, the community came out to like, good job, Mark. Don't think you're going to be a famous director, but yeah, well, come see your movie. Don't think you're going to find 3,000 people to pay $15 for each copy Right

The line was like his brother's like You know I thought you thought he was going to be a serial killer or something Like he's probably better off working in a factory or Dude I think one of his brothers is wearing a hooter shirt During the interview Yeah There's so much character in the environment in the town

You know like there's just so much personality to the movie through all of these unique characters that you find in just like small town America sort of thing Yeah And that's why it feels like it could come off As fake or like a mockumentary You know like you talk like his

His like bad influence friend That they like pick up from jail one day Yeah These guys have been doing the same shit for 20 years There's not really any escape They're kind of trying to find this escape Through their film And yeah you're rooting for them

But you're also like yeah it's probably not going to work guys yeah genuinely does feel like a sitcom they all feel like character archetypes like we mentioned his uncle and the reason he was my favorite is because he was like the only person who was

completely brutally honest about how he just didn't think he was capable of what he was doing and we as the audience kind of know that he's right which just adds another layer of humor to it all that'll be the day yeah But Uncle Bill still needs to give him money Because you know

You need someone to take care of him And give him baths and everything And he cares for him that money Yeah So there is like a connection between them Every time I watch the movie with people And it says that Uncle Bill passed away at the end Everyone goes aw

It's funny though You got this old guy I met a few of these old guys in the Like in the bar biz in Montreal There's a lot of them But they ask him like How much money have you got Bill It's like

$180,000 bucks I think Last time I checked You know It's like the The quintessential kind of like Not so much a Grinch character Because he's not that much of an asshole

But he's living in a trailer park He's like This old miser I guess That's like holding on to his shekels And he's got 180,000 bucks in the bank And he just lives in like the same t-shirt On a pile of old magazines And his mobile home

Yeah He's like what are you going to do with it? He's just sitting in his chair. What are you doing? Just sitting. Reading poems. Just sitting. You're reflecting on your life?

I suppose so. I'd like a peppermint schnapps with sprite and some ice. I think one of my favorite parts easily was when they were doing the ADR for the screams and then Mike who has been just so completely passive and held back the entire movie immediately lets out this like gigantic scream doesn't hold back whatsoever I'm like what a fucking champ what a great guy it's like you you're totally expecting a little like uh like he wouldn't even try yeah but he totally gives it as all and I just find that's so amazing well Alex you were talking about like their their archetypes right he's like the perfect sidekick best friend yeah

yeah i like to drink vodka and then mark came over one day and he had a bottle of vodka and uh well he just drink vodka together and uh yeah it's just a fun time they like caricatures it's bizarre yeah the movie would not be the same without him i'm not sure i would like the movie nearly as much without mike mike is my favorite part yeah i mean mark wouldn't be the same without him Exactly. They need a dynamic. Mark is kind of unlikable. Yeah.

And Mike kind of makes him more likable. Exactly. Brits up the more likable traits in him. Yeah, there are a few scenes where you can tell he's had a few, yeah, a few too many bush lights. And he's like, oh, yeah, okay, just sit in your office there, mom, we'll clean up. Like, dude, you're living in her house. Like, come on. Yeah.

One of the most telling moments towards his character, I guess, in a negative. aspect would be when they were watching the Super Bowl and he just gets drunk and I think he's like the only one drinking and he starts going off like completely what seems like completely unjustified

like there was nothing to trigger it other than his own insecurities but he starts going off on like oh 40 hour a week pieces of crap like I'll never be you you all like just looking at a stadium of people and that's what comes out in his mind like he has this hatred

for this type of person, this like average person, but it's really just coming from hatred towards himself because he's in that situation. That is him, right? And he's trying to convince himself every day that that's not him. And he's looking towards this futuristic,

ideal scenario where he's just super rich because of his movies. That's never going to happen, right? And it's like he has to create this and continue this facade where he's like, no, yeah, I'm a big deal. I'm making movies and I'm not like you people. I'm a big star and I'm going to, you'll all see sort of thing.

So he can convince himself that he's just not a regular person because he hates that for some reason. It's like if he was just comfortable with himself. You know, if he just didn't hate himself, then maybe he'd be fine. Yeah, exactly. Well, yeah, no, it is. The guy like the brother with the hoodoo shirt just kind of sitting there like, you know, he seems like, you know, collected. but at the same time he's just kind of sitting in Milwaukee

and like a mobile home he's kind of come to terms that you know that's the guy he is and then you got Mark who's doing the exact same thing but with these bigger dreams he wants to hit this American dream but yeah he's vacuuming funeral homes yeah he's got so many insecurities yeah what degree do you accept what you're doing and accept your lot in life in a way

or just kind of keep shooting for the stars it's it's weird well it's one thing to that's where the sadness comes in It's one thing to like try and have a passion and get yourself out of a situation that you don't want to be in. If you have goals and aspirations, that's good. But to be completely unrealistic about it, to be, to have such hatred towards other people for just like what you don't know those people in that football stadium. What if they're comfortable working a 40 hour week? What if they have good?

You're like, you don't know these people. What's wrong with you? Right? And it just comes out when he gets super fucking shitfaced. and it's so bizarre that like you can tell how much you just hates himself you know yeah I think we've met a lot of people like that though there's tons of people like that it's a very real thing they're you know for lack of a better term they're kind of just like you know they're jacking themselves off you know yeah oh I got this got this new contract man yeah I'm gonna

be moving up in the world I'm looking at Mercedes online it's like a performance okay yeah yeah it just comes off as sad you know yeah so it makes the film more human though. Exactly. They just happen to find this perfect group of people who are just sort of thick enough to be totally honest whenever they're asked any questions. Yeah, that's what's so interesting about the main guy is he's got a surprisingly decent vocabulary that makes it so he's kind of able to sell these concepts to people just because he sounds like flowery with all the dialogue he's choosing to say. But when you actually break it down, what he's saying isn't profound or anything.

No, he's a good bullshit. He's a manipulator. He's a con artist. Exactly. Yeah. Like, he doesn't borrow money from his uncle. He manipulates it out of his hands. Exactly.

He goes to the bank with him. And he's so uncomfortable as it's happening. You know, like, fucking Christ. Literally just, like, yeah, I mean. Exactly. Yeah. You're like, no, you'll get your money back. That'll be the first thing we do.

If we sell 3,000 copies. Showing the picture of the lead woman. half an hour bullshit film that nobody wants to see. If we sell 3,000 of those for $15 each and literally asking legitimate questions like, oh, well, who's going to buy it? Like, where's the market? Who's going to watch this? You know, like, oh, you just got to trust me.

She's going to be in your movie, Bill. Yeah. It's so ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah. 3,000's a lot of copies. Yeah. It's a lot.

To give a comparison, I would say Lover has a bit more of an audience. than Mark's film. And that didn't even get close to 3,000 copies sold. So I don't know what the fuck he's thinking where he's going to sell that many. It's hilarious, though. In the end credits, he just doesn't know how it works.

They mentioned how his uncle actually just gave him 50,000 in his will or something to finish Northwestern. Northwestern. And then you look on his IMDB and he never did. It's like, is he still making it? I don't know. Fuck.

Probably gave up. He just gave you $50,000. What'd you do with it? That's the thing, too. The film starts. He's making Northwestern. and he kind of abandoned Coven. Yeah.

So you get this whole kind of pre-production phase of Northwestern. I assume when they were making the documentary at first, that's what they wanted to document. And then Mark just kind of goes off the rails and he makes Coven out of nowhere. Which is so funny. Right, yeah. He went on apparently, so there's an article that came out in 2017. A trailer came out for a documentary that he was making titled The Dundee Project, which is like a UFO documentary. about locals who had seen UFOs.

I don't know if this movie ever came out. But it's actually, the trailer at least, is narrated by Justin Vernon from Bon Iver. Nice. Which is pretty crazy. That's weird. So I don't know, I guess he's still around, but there's a, you know, a subreddit for like rare and vintage

and esoteric VHSs. And that's still one of the top ones where it's just like, I need a VHS copy of Kovin. Kevin. All right. Yeah, yeah. I guess he's acted in a couple movies. Like I see here on, like on his wiki, there's like stuff all the way into like...

Well, yeah, because of the success of this documentary, people are like, oh, you know. Like his acting is probably the best trait he has in terms of like artistic talent. His acting was probably like he's a better actor than he is director. So why not just throw him in a movie? He was in the cabin fever sequel. He played like a character Yeah I looked up his IMDB

He played it That's funny Yeah Oh cabin fever too Yeah Spring fever Yeah Apparently like a fairly

Major character Clearly that's Yeah And I'm sure he's made A lot of cameo appearances Yeah He was like on an interview show

One of those with him And Mike Shank I forgot which one But they were pretty entertaining on that Especially together Want to talk about Colvin though

Yeah Let's talk about Colvin It's Coven Coven, it's pronounced Coven. Oh, that guy. Colvin. Umlaught. Yeah, I love this.

Like, that was another of my favorite side characters. This like, uberthespian, like. Oh, yeah, that guy. Mr. Theater. I'll remove the scarf. Maybe. Yeah. The actor.

Very real character. Yeah, the best, uh, the best part of Coven is right at the beginning with the old man. And then also Mike in the movie. Yeah. Every scene with him was just so good. That was kind of distracting. Like, knowing what went into making it is kind of makes it not, you don't take it as seriously. Exactly.

The whole film. But it's not as terrible as I thought it was going to be. I think some of those were supposed to be funny with Mike. Yeah. It's definitely. Clearly some of them are supposed to be funny. But the thing is, the movie isn't awful like the room or something where it's like totally irredeemable and the dialogue is terrible.

There's some things to it that are like interesting. like the he actually did shoot on film so it does kind of look creepy and knowing what he went through to get those shots too yeah it's it's pretty competent in terms of you know piecing together even though it's a 30 minute short yeah he did like there's like a lot of improv with the actors so it seems like improv so that dialogue didn't feel stilted like all the time sometimes it didn't but yeah most of the movie was pretty crappy yeah and it also was about like alcoholism It was like a horror film kind of about that, I think, with like, his group therapy meetings. But, like, it was a bunch of crap.

Yeah. Yeah, it's very confused. There's a, there's a tweet. He's got a Twitter. And the pin tweet here from February 2017 is, I've begun to write Coven 2. Oh, no. Coven 2. Be the bird amic too, right?

Yeah. Did you have anything to say about Kogan, Alex? Honestly, I couldn't get all the way through it. It just, after that first, like, joke, it was just such a mess. Yeah. It's boring. It was very boring. Yeah, it was.

I got about 20 minutes in and just as I think I get this now. It's way too long. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't have much going on for what it is. It's not profound in any way. I wasn't really expecting that, but. Or really interesting.

Yeah. They did a decent summary at the end of the American movie. Oh, yeah, that's super cut. Yeah. Yeah. It made the documentary made the film Coven seem all right. It didn't look as bad from what they showed in the documentary. I think they were just trying to be nice.

Because they easily could have included that in the film, like not the whole thing, but they could have included an edit of the film that showed it in a less positive light. they were clearly trying to show it in a way where it's like, oh yeah, we want a happy ending for the documentary kind of sort of thing. Yeah, they just don't show you the movie because it's not great.

But yeah, again, that's not the point. The point was making the movie. Exactly. And all these crazy, cookie people coming together to make a movie even though none of them want to. Can you look more menacing? You need to look more menacing. Yeah, they're completely covered

in these costumes. teams and they're like you're not giving them real direction you know if you yeah is these a bunch of these people are just non-actors first of all second like what do you mean by menacing you have to say something like what do you want their arms to be up you want them to like look like they're clawing people change their posture you know you got to describe thing you give them like a reason to want to be that like what do you mean you can just say you have be angry that's part of being a director but he doesn't get it right because he has his own vision in his head, but he doesn't know how to communicate it properly. Yeah. It seemed like he just made it up as he went

along. He's missing he's missing the middle step. He wants to be he wants to be this famous director and in line with like a lot of the horror movies that he's seen throughout his life. He wants to be at that point despite the amount of work that he put into this one movie that we've seen the documentary. He's like he's not doing the work to get there. It's uh, you know, similar to I know Adam does a lot of music and I have as well and especially running a bar where people come in and and play music. the you see a lot of people that are already in like diva mode yeah when there's maybe three or four people that even know who they are so like they want that end result which is fame and success as opposed to starting from a point of creativity like this is what I want to make I want to do cool

stuff and then maybe that'll come later it's you're skipping that whole middle part of the sandwich there's no meat there it's all bread I got that sense for him too I love the conversation where he's he's going saying like it's unchristian to be successful when others are not I'm not a Christian though I'm a half Christian half Satanist what I'm like what did you mean I love I love how in uh I think I think some of the interviews are like I don't know in the garage or the basement or something he's just talking to the camera and then you'll see coming from the bottom of the frame he holds up like either a beer or like once it was like a turkey turkey drumstick or whatever.

Yeah. It was just, it was so much character to how this documentary and he yells up. He's like, yeah, I've almost got this shot.

Just ten more minutes. Chugs a beer. Yeah. It's just, it's so genuine. And I think that's, it's biggest factor in terms of why this movie

is great. It's because it feels genuine. It feels real. It's a testament to the characters too, right? A lot of documentary is like you need

so much more than just characters, right? You're telling a story, you have narration. this is, I think, one of my favorite kind of styles of documentary where they just show. They're not telling you anything. Yeah.

And obviously, there's always a narrative of the director by choosing what shots you're showing and in what order, you know, to what kind of music. But it's just all right there. And it just makes you feel like you could just put a camera in so many different like, you know, small town America or whatever country spots and have this kind of film. Like, it's not inimitable. You could do it again. You just have to find the right people.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, I feel that way. Yeah, it felt very fly on the wall, like, very impartial. Like, they were just watching this craziness unfold in front of it. And that's what makes it even funnier. It's very dry. It doesn't tell you what's funny and what's not funny. You could laugh hysterically throughout the entire thing, even when it's serious. I honestly want to hold it against you. There's a lot of, I like the scene in the beginning when he's, like, doing the rehearsals with the actors, and he starts, like, participating. because they're not doing a good enough job and he's like yelling at them.

They're butchering my script. Yeah, they're making a mockery in my words, man. Like his script is like a fucking Charlie Kaufman masterpiece or something shit. Exactly. What do you think your script is? Clearly, he has a lot of angry energy or like anger in him. Yeah. He's always yelling in his scripts and in his films.

It's always about killing people and fucking screaming at the top of his lungs. It's just very obvious that that's what, it is and that kind of takes you out of like watching coven for example yeah took me out of it yeah exactly right like you can't it's difficult to imagine watching a film like coven without understanding all of the context behind it because that's the only reason i watched it is because of the the background because of the production because of characters so it's like it's impossible to separate that but you know tons of really crappy short films exist like that everywhere perhaps there's a lot of of interesting stories behind those too.

You never know, right? Yeah. I love how he actually like shoved that actor's head into the cupboard. It's like, it's not how you're supposed to do it. And also wasn't working

the first few times. They have to keep cutting slits in. Yeah. Like, it shouldn't have been smacking me with it. I mean, regardless of whether or not you have Balsa wood available, regardless of that,

in terms of creating like a stunt or like any kind of like action sequence like that the one who's getting their head going through the cupboard is supposed to be using their energy to do it like that's how you're supposed to cheat it

he can hold his shoulders or whatever but you let you let the actor who's in the most danger you let them control it but he was literally throwing that guy's head through the cupboard right he's just smashing it he also should have got a stunt guy to do it but yeah

whatever just have my mom hold the camera and I'll look at my brother to do it like you're gonna give that guy a concussion why would you do that he doesn't care probably sold all 3,000 copies

of the VHS by now so yeah maybe he did it I hope so yeah good job Mark what would you guys give this movie out of 10 or out of your stars

oh yeah what that's tough the documentary thing adds an extra level. Yeah. I'll just go first. I'm going to say five out of five because this is one of my favorite movies. So, of course.

I'm giving this one an eight out of ten, and it could be higher on a second watch. Who knows? You'll probably watch it ten times in your life. Yeah, I could easily watch it again, for sure. That's the thing that the comedic aspects is so strong. It's so consistently funny. I was thinking, yeah, like four and a half stars.

Yeah, I really enjoyed it. I really especially liked how it highlighted that a lot of the time, the process can be way more interesting and characterful and almost cinematic than what the end result is. Like it makes you wonder about, you know, the garbage like Justice League or like Solo Star Wars story that have these like crazy stories like trapped behind like the production. And I'm sure that's way more interesting and has way more character and conflict

than the actual result that like came in the end. Yeah. Coven being the example of like just how. Coven. Covem, sorry, yeah, let me say. Yeah, yeah, I don't know how to rate it. The, like, whether you rate it on, I mean, obviously, you're rating the film itself, but, you know, the, the, regardless of where the director was, like you needed those characters. I don't know.

I think it's got to be a 10 out of 10 for me, like Ralph said, it's one of my favorite movies ever. I've seen it probably a dozen times. And it was so cool seeing it in an audience. You know, I'd seen it. Yeah. So many times with, you know, a friend like, hey, you got to watch this movie. You got to watch this movie. It's usually one of those like, just trust me, sit down.

You know, who knows what it's going to be for you. But seeing it in a room full of people who had never seen it and were, you know, laughing along the parts that I always thought were hilarious. But I wondered before we did the screening, like, is anybody going to think this is funny? It's funny to me because I've seen it a dozen times. So it's quotable. I know it's coming up and it's funnier to me every time. But no, people were loving it. So, good.

Yeah, it's 10 out of 10. I guess question time. Awesome. Good recommendation. Yeah, no, I can't wait to watch that one with a show some people. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's going to be fun to watch, like, how other people react, as you said.

But yeah, let's do some questions then. If you want to leave your own questions for us to answer, head over to the Sardonicast Reddit, where Ralph will lead a thread for you to leave whatever you want. That's right. Let's start with one from Cash Slinging Smasher, which is a funny name. Can you name a movie that you really enjoy that has a side plot so bad or uninteresting that you skip it on rewatches? Am I allowed to name like an anthology kind of movie? So like something like Tokyo exclamation mark, that's one where like the there's two really great stories and one really annoying, awful story where it's like I don't know, I rewatch it.

the only reason I would watch the bad one would be to just torture myself something like that place beyond the pines for me yeah that too the whole third story is just I just shut the movie off after the first half shut the movie off after the first third

of that movie yeah first third and then it's just downhill from there downhill from there yeah well it's the obvious answer but I can't stand that he walks not get past them little fuckers how about the opposite like a really awful movie but it has one good plot or character in it that you're like oh that was interesting

normally i find these kinds of films so forgettable yeah exactly there's probably one somewhere yeah i remember uh i think i had kind of this issue with um mr nobody because there's many different like timeline stories happening at once or it's just like uh some of these as soon as they come back to them I'm like eh you know some of them I'm more excited about when they come back to them honestly I find some episodes of black mirror to be what Ralph just said like kind of good concepts but the execution kind of fumbles like the latest season I thought was was quite like that the whole thing okay yeah like it's definitely one of the flatter seasons like there's isn't really a proper standout for sure I liked season five episode one I thought that was

hilarious. I heard the first episode was good. Yeah. I like the idea of it, but there were just some weird questions I had about it. What, the Miley Cyrus one? Are you talking about?

No, no. Well, don't spoil anything because Ralph hasn't seen it. Yeah. That was episode three. Oh, shit. I guess, did I watch it out of order? I don't know.

It might have. It was like the video game one. Right, that one was amazing. Yeah, I like that one a lot. Yeah, I thought that was the strongest episode. Yeah, that one was really awesome. Yeah. Episode two was really lame.

and then the Miley Cyrus one was like kind of decent but not amazing yeah it was like nearly there yeah Evan did you have any film where you don't like a side plot I'm trying to think about it the uh you don't have anything that's fine we can is there our least favorite character and rat race yeah let's see no they're all great they're all great actually I don't like the the I don't like the the tongue piercing guy so much yeah he's a little out there Yeah, I think that's my least favorite plot. No, it's all good, man. All good.

Watch that movie. Star-Stated. Perfect movie. Five out of five. Yeah, actually the Smash-mouth side story was a little bit. That's not a joke. Smash-mouth, is in it? Yeah.

I don't want to spoil anything. Oh, my God, you guys haven't seen that. Oh, boy. Well, never mind. No. Yeah, I don't want to spoil it. All right. We have a question specifically for Evan from Tunisian, who asks,

For Adam's brother, why did you force your parents to watch Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny instead of Stalker? Oh, boy. I didn't say he forced them. I mean, well, I definitely was maybe a little overbearing on the movie choice there. I don't know. It's that, you know, I was saying at the beginning of the recording here, there's like, there's something to be said about nostalgia having, you know, kind of tinting your view on things. Yeah. And, you know, back when, man, I must have been, I don't know, 16 or 17 when that movie came out.

And it was getting high a lot. And it was incredible. It was amazing. I wasn't even, well, yeah, I wasn't really that big a fan of their music. But it was like from that opening credits where it's like the sort of the THX, it's the THC. And like the sound. Dude, weird. La Mayo.

Sound is just coming from their farts. I was like, this is so cool. And yeah, so the memory that I had of that movie was tainted by the moment in time that I had seen that movie and the state of mind that I was in when I saw that movie. Bates. And it was one of those moments, like, I enjoyed it, you know, of nostalgia. But it's that moment where you're like showing somebody, usually it's more like a YouTube video or something like that. We're like, yo, you got to see this video. And then you're playing it and you kind of like side-eyeing and looking at the person watching it and you can tell they're not really

responding to it. It was like that, but for like an hour and a half. My family. I remember it being kind of bad when I first saw it. Yeah. I loved it and I saw it when I was like 13 and I loved it. My mom like really likes Jack Black. Like one of her, oh fuck, she loves Nacho Libre. Yeah.

is naturally impression, which is so bad. So I figured like, oh, she likes Jack Black, you know, this would be funny, but, uh, well, I don't think they were too into it. I think my mom fell asleep. They fall asleep in every movie, though. Oh, okay. Yeah. But, uh, no, if they would have stayed up, they would have seen a masterpiece. It was fine.

Maybe you should have gotten them high first. Yeah. Well, yeah, maybe. They sneak them some out ofils. Oh, God. Yeah, no thanks. Put LSD in the Sangria. Yeah.

That would go well. Yeah, they've got really well. What's the worst that could happen? I don't know if we want to get on climax again. I know you guys have talked about that, but I don't know if any of you have been dosed with psychedelics. No. No. Well, don't, don't.

Don't drink anything that you haven't had your eye on. Yeah. It's a very, well, no, if you think about it, like, whether you've done it or not, one minute you're drinking a sangria and, like, watching these characters kind of go through it. And I know you guys have talked about this before, but the fact that it was done fully, like, fly on the wall style, like you're not going into the kind of really typical, like, whoa, drug mode in a movie where, like, the walls are moving and like, and it was very improv too. There's a lot of improvisation.

Those characters felt very real. So when it started happening. What's even weirder, most of them had. I mean, I don't know if most or all of them had never done psychedelics, including Gas Balcon the Way, which I don't know if I believe that. Yeah. I don't believe that at all. How would you know?

It was terrifying. You know, just watching kind of people go through that like, okay, here we go. You don't know how long it's going to last. Is this real? Like, what's going on? So no. I'm not going to dose my parents with Brownie to watch. To watch Tennessee.

That's terrifying me You guys ready So yeah that's my answer Ravens Leia has one for a still answer They ask What movies are you not ever going to watch Or something you know you're just never going to bother with Toy Story 4

Oh really Never gonna watch it Nice Never gonna watch it It's over Three is the last one We connected I didn't know that was possible

Yeah it was All the way from Canada to LA yeah it was really cool I got short legs but long arms there's tons of movies I just never feel like I need to see ever like the emoji movie like why why would I ever watch that you're missing out on that one yeah sure

yeah you should watch it because it's it's just a baffling the film you should see it just to experience the worst fucking thing yeah I don't know it's it's a little weird to say for sure never going to watch ever when, you know, I don't know, like, what movie am I never going to see ever? Oh, I got an answer.

Wait, no, no, no, I'm going to look up what the fuck this movie is. I'm just going to remember the title because I got a perfect answer for this fucking one. Okay. I remember you saying the Lion King before. No, I'm not going to see that in theaters. The new one. I'm going to wait until digital. I'm going to torture myself in comfort of my own home.

So the movie that I am never going to see ever 100% game. guaranteed is a hundred years directed by Robert Rodriguez, a film that is going to be released in the year 2115. Okay. Yeah. That's my 100% certain. Well, if it gets released before that point, then sure, I'll see it, but I don't think it's ever going to happen.

Written by John Malcich and he's not going to release it. It's a movie that is basically, it exists as an ad for some booze. that's like they're like 100 years aged blah Louis blah blah it's the best booze ever and so then they paid Robert Rodriguez to direct the movie we don't know how long it is I guess John Malkovich wrote it and stars in it and the whole gimmick is that it's not going to be released

for 100 years so they made it in 2015 it's going to be released in 2115 probably stinks yeah I mean what the hell is this going to be those kind of movies are like you know you're talking about the emoji movie. Like, there's some movies that I don't need to watch. Not because I know exactly what it's going to be like, but I have a feeling that like,

it's like, what's that dish, balut? It's like the fermented, like, chick inside the eggshell. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah. You eat. It's like, you know, buried underground. It's like, I don't know, I've talked to people. Like, yeah, I tried it.

You got to, everybody's got to try it. Like, I feel like I know what it's going to taste like. And if I don't, if it tastes different than what I thought it was going to taste like, it doesn't mean I'm going to enjoy it. I'll get to check it off on my list. I watch the emoji movie, Aida Ballute. Like, I'm good. I think that with films, it's even, like, there's more of an argument to make that you

know what it's going to be like because they put their best material out in the marketing and promotional material. So, like, if it's a comedy movie and you didn't laugh during the trailer, you're probably not going to laugh during the movie because those were the best jokes that they had. Although, that's not always true. It's not always true, but you're right. like a studio felt like come on you know Seth Rogan comedy you know yeah

right yeah and then you see the movie it's like why do I even watch it if all the best jokes were in the trailer yeah and sometimes those jokes aren't even funny exactly for me it's I have a particular thing about bad horror movies like I pride myself on the fact that I've never seen a paranormal activity movie

I'm never going to I don't there's nothing about it that even interests me even on like it's so bad it's good level because I don't think They are like that. Although, they're just boring. The first one has some charm to it. No.

Can't hear what you're there? Okay, well, I'm going to rewatch it soon anyway. I'm going to see if it makes my guilty pleasures for 2007 or whatever. Guilty pleasure. Yeah. But also shit like that Slender Man movie. Oh, yeah. That was bad.

Or like unfriended. Because you guys just made videos on it. Yeah, unfriended. So I can just watch you guys videos on it and that would be way more entertaining. Yeah, I guess that's one way to do it. A bye-bye man? Yeah, exactly. That kind of ilk of horror movie.

I just can't stand them. So far the ones you've mentioned, I would say like, yeah, if you're watching in the right environment with the right amount of booze and friends, then it could be kind of funny. But one that I will suggest never to try and have that experience with is amusement, which is a film that, like, I can guarantee you the only pleasant experience you're ever going to get out of that movie is just watching my video on it. Yeah. It's only funny if you're, if you keep in mind like the entire plot and like every detail and try to piece together why it doesn't make sense.

Like that's the humor. Yeah. And you can't really get that out of just like a first time viewing watching the movie. It's just a bad movie in that case. Yeah. I mean, wasn't your review series on that almost as long as the actual movie? It wasn't like three parts. It was just two.

There's three parts. But there's a lot to talk about in that movie. There is. It's a very ambitious film. Rick Mick Nick has one for us. You've mentioned what makes a film or director pretentious to you before. But I'd like to hear from you guys what makes a critic pretentious in your book. Ooh.

Ooh. It's quite a good question. Like the same reasons. Like self-importance. Usually if a critic's like my opinion is the best one. I don't know many critics who do that But if they do do that they're fucking asshole There's like a tone of delivery

Yeah That makes all the difference If you act like you know everything And you're not willing to budge Or hear other people out That's what'll do it for me Yeah I don't know if I'd call it pretentious

But like the critics who are like This is a rip-roar and good time Fun for the whole family Like lights camera Jackson Like a bunch of bullshit Like they sound like Mark from American movies They have no idea what they're talking about.

So they're just using these words. Yeah. I think the idea of like a critic that doesn't get behind the fact that they are just sharing their opinions, right? So like if a critic, and I know you guys are all open about this, but this is your opinion on a movie. Whether you agree with me or not, it doesn't really matter. This is what I think of the movie. But I think there's a lot of reviewers out there that, you know, their opinion is not their opinion. It's sacrosanct.

this is an objectively bad movie or this is amazing and if you disagree with me then fuck you like that's pretension to me yeah i guess my understanding or my feelings on critics that i've read that feel pretentious is when i read a review for a movie and by the end of it i feel like i've read a poem and i didn't learn anything about the movie i feel like it feels where the review itself feels like an excuse to try and make some sort of like grandios poetry rather than actually talk about the qualities of the film. Yeah, exactly. Where it's like, I'm going to exercise my vocabulary.

And that's the whole point of it. And it's like it's no longer about the movie. That's what I feel is like pretentious. Right. Yeah, getting hung up on symbolism that may or may not even be there. Well, I mean like even that would be an example of like some quality of the film at least. But there's so many that like they'll just basically recycle the plot without really giving any You know giving any information on like what made it good. Why did you like it? Really basic things that you should be communicating

In a review like I would rather have somebody got out of it Yeah, I would rather have somebody with like a shit vocabulary just say what they liked about the movie than somebody You know trying to trying to make some essay some some poetry essay out of it that by the end of it you don't really like learn anything other than oh this guy has a vocabulary and he obviously has a degree in something but like you didn't tell me anything about the movie it's like when you look online for a recipe oh god i just want to know how to make these cookies man yeah i don't need to four to five pages of well i was out today at uh traitor jo's and i saw these great deal and by the way springtime's nice it's like what the who you it's give me the recipe that's uh that's an inevitability just based on

internet algorithms because the more the more words you include in your article the more keywords will show up in a search result so it's genius I don't know if it's pretentious but like critics who nitpick on one particular aspect

of a film and act like that's the only thing the film has going for it or like just focus on that part and not all the good qualities of it I think that's kind of fucked up too and I think it's manipulative to just harp on a certain plot points that are well like cinema sins kind of does that where it's just constant you know this is what's

wrong with it nitpick nitpick nitpick for 20 minutes yeah that's it yeah cinema since even if it's a good film not really i don't think they call themselves critics in the first place yeah but i don't know what they are exactly they're they're clickbait it's just it's just ironic but i'm like what's ironic it's all it's it's money that's all it is it's no yeah it's just clickbait it's literally just clickbait. Yeah. If you want to have someone really lazily try to point out every perceived potential flaw in something that isn't even really a flaw, like, oh, she still has her shirt on.

Ding. Like, okay. Yeah. Hmm. This movie has opening titles. Ding. Okay. Yeah.

Uh, one more. Okay. Let's do one that isn't even movie related. Oh. From John Travolta. 69 69 69. Yes, my boy! Yeah.

How was high school for you beautiful people? Nice and simple. It's pretty good. That's it. Goodbye, everybody. Four out of five. Four and five. Pretty good, was it? I thought high school was shit. Yeah?

Yeah. That's because I was when I was at my most like insecure and shy then. Because you know like you tend to fall into like either a bit of an introvert or a bit of an extrovert I went full-on introvert It took me a while to sort of find myself And of course everyone Everyone's at their most cruel in high school

It's just like a shit show Especially the school I went to Yeah That was more mean like middle school I think high school I started to get out of the introverted mode But what age you in high school Because we didn't really call that Oh so my school was a special case

where grades 7 through 12 are all in the same building. Like, it's all the same school. So like... Right. So basically, what was it? Seventh grade to 12th grade. Yeah. And by the time I got to, when I was like 16, 17, I got out of that introverted state

when I started making movies in the high school, when I got permission to finally do all that shit. So that was fun. And I finally got like a passion for something. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, the rest of high school was kind of like your experience. Alex kind of introverted and it kind of sucked. Oh, I don't know.

I mean, I agree with what Alex said about you kind of figure out, you go down one or the other introvert or extrovert and I'd been pretty introverted before high school. Maybe this can touch on embarrassing stories about Adam, but it's not that embarrassing. We both had pretty severe allergies as kids. So like, you know, nuts and dairy, seafood, latex. what else a bunch of drugs bananas chickpeas it was like it's pretty intense and so like i had come out of junior high being like a fanny pack boy you know i had like an epi pan and you know it was like now you're rocking the fanny pack again you love your peanut butter yeah yeah i'm bringing it back baby uh but no it was

like it was still fresh it was like allergies weren't as well known back then i guess so it was like not that oh peanut butter isn't going to be allowed in schools anymore I was like this kid this new kid means that I can't bring peanut butter to school I love PB and J's so it was pretty lame I got bullied a lot and then high school those allergies apparently went away I got tested again and everything was fine and so then you know discovered drama and music and whatever and was like oh shit like I can like create my own identity so yeah no by the end of high school it was it was pretty okay, you know. I'd come into like a pretty solid friend group that I still have today.

You know, we're all on different sides of the globe right now. But it, uh, it was okay. Yeah, it was okay. Although it was kind of a dick in like the end of high school, I think. So I'm kind of reeling it back now. But no, it was okay. It was okay. I dropped out.

I was kind of a dick in high school too. Oh, you dropped out. You can't not be a bit of a dick. just part of the course, isn't it? Yeah. Sorry to cut you off. But you're trying to figure out who you are yourself, right? And in doing so, it's like a lot easier to give other people shit than to acknowledge your own insecurities and shortcomings. That's the way everyone was in high school, because

everyone's insecure about everything about them. Yeah. You don't even know who you are yet, really, until, God, way later. Yep, not yet. I don't think. Yeah. Sorry, what were you going to say, Adam? I was sorry. I dropped out. I did high school, I guess, technically start at grade 10 where I was. I did all of grade 10, and then I dropped out before Christmas in grade 11. Mostly, like, I don't know. I just wasn't interested in a lot of what I was experiencing.

I would just be like sleeping through classes or being late anyway. I was like, well, the initial goal wasn't like, oh, yeah, fuck school. I'm going to be smarter without it. It was just like, I'm going to take condensed courses where my time is more valuable and do the same thing in less time because there are other options you can take to do that. So I was moving towards doing condensed courses, but still technically being in school. And so I talked with one of my counselors for the school or whatever. I was like, hey, so I'm still in the school play. I want to see if I can, you know, I'm moving towards doing condensed course.

and like doing some online courses and dropping a few things here. Is it possible to still stay in the school play? Should I stay in my classes until after Christmas? Because that's when the school plays happening. And he's like, oh, well, let's just talk to the principal about that. He was like, it seems reasonable. And so like, I went, I started the communication to ask when I could have just said nothing. And then we talked to the principal and she's like, oh no, you're kicked out of the play.

You've missed, you've missed enough classes already. I'm like, what? So she immediately just like went on this power trip and just like, okay, we were so far through the production that like you're really, you're just making it hard on the drama teacher now who's got to like recast this. Like I had a pretty major role. And like, that really pissed me off. And so I was like, I'll fuck you. I'm not going back to school ever. And I just left and worked a lot on my music.

And eventually I wound up, you know, taking those condensed courses just going through things really fast. got good marks. Just, you know, I took my, I took my English 30 exam, literally not having spent a single day in an English 30 class. I just went right to the test and got 90 something. I was like, okay, well, fuck it. You know, like, so, yeah, I asked one of the teachers, because I knew that one of the questions on the exam would be relating to either a book or a film that was shown in class.

So I just asked one of the teachers at this condensed center high. condensed course place in Edmonton. I was like, hey, what are some of the movies you showed in class? And then she said one of them was Shawshank Redemption. I was like, okay, good. And I knew that no matter what question was asked on that test about relating something

to a novel or a film, I knew that no matter what was asked, I could find a way to fit in, to relate it to that scene of the guy with the bird that, you know, going back into society. And I did. Yeah. It's like, no matter what they ask, I can relate it to that.

So I was pretty confident about it. And yeah, the high school experience was just really, you know, I had friends. I didn't, I don't think that I was like hated or anything. It was decent. I was going through a lot of shit at the time. A lot of really bad shit, as I've discussed earlier in other episodes of this podcast. You know, just developing and sexuality and drugs and a bunch of, bunch of, fucked up shit.

So I can't say the experience was good. It was very short-lived. And I'm glad I dropped out. That seemed to have been the better choice for what I'm doing in my life. But, yeah, it's just don't really have too much to go into in terms of, like, the whole experience other than just, I didn't do it. I just dropped out. Well, you were actually, you were captain of the football team before you dropped out, right? What?

Go Titans. No. I couldn't tell if you were being serious. I was like, what? I didn't play football. I was just high the whole time. I thought you were the star quarterback. Okay.

All right. I guess that's it for questions. Yeah. All right. All right. So I guess we got a movie recommendation. It's me, right? What was the last one before this?

Oh yeah, it was Alien 3. Yes, it is, you Ralph. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Bada boom. All right. So it's been about a year since we started this podcast, and I had my first recommendation. And it's about time to recommend another David Lynch film

because that was my first recommendation, too. We're going to watch Eraserhead. Okay, good. Yay. Nice. Yeah. Nice. I was half debating watching that like three nights ago.

I was like, will today be the day? Well, even if you did. I mean, yeah. I've been meaning to catch up on David Lynch for so long. So I'm glad for. Now let's watch one of his weird movies. Well, the heart was more normal. Yeah, more normie.

Time to get really far out there. Yeah. All right. I can't wait. Okay. Nice. If any of you listening don't want to be spoiled for Eraserhead.

Watch it before the next episode in two weeks from now. We'll be spoiling it. We'll be discussing it. So watch it because then you'll be able to listen to the discussion without being spoiled. Thank you for listening if you want to support the show. $2 a month. Sardonicast.com sign up for premium. You'll get these episodes early as they're edited.

Also patreon.com slash sardonicast. Same thing. And also we have merch. We have some shirts and stuff. Thank you for joining, Evan, special guest. Hey, thanks for having me. Thanks for having you. Thanks for the plug last week.

Yeah, no, it was awesome. I listened to you guys every week, so this is a dream come true. You listen to us every two weeks, unless you listen to each of the episodes. That's what I meant. Twice. Yeah, I listened to it twice. I just wanted to say before I go, the episode 36, after hearing the fact that you had to retake all of your lines, well, was the funniest thing that I've ever listened to.

It's starkle. It's amazing because also there's like throughout the whole thing, it makes it feel like both Alex and Adam are overdubbing. It's amazing. It's amazing. It feels scripted. And I mean, I'm really impressed. You did the whole like you tried to match the intonations.

I'm sure it was wonderful. Yeah, I was really acting. You sounded very tired. I was moving my hands. I was very passionate. I went back and I looked at it. I think whoever posted that in the subreddit. Whoever posted the picture in the subreddit of the guy

like sitting next to the like the ice cream freezer? Like talking? Perfect. Am I allowed to, can I give a little? What's your bar? Well, yeah, my bar is the diving bell social club. It's in Montreal and we do music and drag and burlesque and theater and da-da-da-da-da-da. Where's Montreal?

Montreal is, it's in Quebec. It's in Canada. Oh. Is Canada? North America? It's the yes. It's the place where they say

an eggplant is an aubergin. It's that whole thing. I think it comes from the French. But no, every Tuesday we do a movie screening. So, you know, we've got beer and couches and good times.

The tomorrow, I don't know when this comes out. Anyway, it's not coming out today. It's not coming out today? No. Okay. Is it coming out tomorrow? No. It's coming out. Okay, then next one.

Why don't you just tell people where they would find out? Just go to divingbell social.com, our calendars there, and come by and say hi. It's a fun time. Okay. Awesome. Thanks for having me. It was awesome. Thanks for joining.

Thank you, everybody, for listening to this episode, Sardonic Guest. Keanu Reeves blesses you with his lovely, perfect soul. Shalom. Whoa. So long. Goodbye, everybody. everybody. Bye. Bye-bye.