Sardonicast - Sardonicast #52: 1917, Come and See

Episode Date: January 28, 2020

Timestamps 0:00 - Intro 1:15 - Warner Bros. signs deal with A.I. analytics company 13:37 - Parasite HBO series 21:10 - 1917 37:38 - 1917 (Spoilers) 47:48 - Come and See (Spoilers) 1:15:13 - Q&A 1:15:35 - What are Alex's and Ralph's thoughts about the final season of Mr. Robot? 1:19:17 - Would you have a harder time enjoying mainstream American cinema if it all was a grand conspiracy? 1:21:08 - Thoughts about Ricky Gervais' opening monologue in Golden Globe Awards 2020? 1:23:29 - Who are your favourite comedy actors? 1:25:50 - Do you think a movie is better if it's an cinematic achievement? 1:28:06 - Is there a film you love that carries a negative connotation as a generic "film bro" movie? 1:31:21 - How do you feel about TV shows with laugh tracks? 1:35:53 - Film Recommendation Adam Recommends: Wizards (1977) by Ralph Bakshi. (Thank you to Alexander Nordfors Ross Stern for the Timestamps)

Three, two, one. I watch Sardinacus every day. I watch Sardinacus. I'm impressed by your pitch there. Oh, thanks. Yeah. It was a strain. Do you guys know that meme at all?

It was like the Pokemon Go kid. I don't. It's got 82 million views. Amazing. That's incredible. This is Sardinacast. I'm Adam from your movie sucks I'm Ralph from YouTube

I'm Alex from IHE and I'd just love to know how mental Adam must sound if you like took all the clips of the intros from various episodes and just strung them together you'd have something interesting there yeah it sounds like I'm unstable so we got some

we got some movies to talk about but first we got some some movie related news to talk about, apparently Warner Brothers has just signed a deal for an AI driven film management

system. So basically shit. Yeah. Shit that we were joking about a year ago is now true. It's like a recurring joke that we make about how companies are just making movies based on

like Google data. Yeah. And like I guess we're more right than we thought. Yeah. It's the natural progression of that kind of thinking, that idea. It's hilarious. That's how you know what people like. Do you guys want to explain what it is?

Oh, sure. Do you want me to do it? Yeah. Yeah. I'll quickly read what's irrelevant anyway. In this article from the Hollywood reporter, their first line is literally resistance is futile. Warner Bros. has become the latest studio to publicly embrace artificial intelligence. The movie division has signed a deal with

Cynolitic. I might have read that wrong to use the Latter's AI-driven project management system that was launched last year. It's like analytic but cinema. Cynoletic. Yeah, that's what I kind of founded. So clever. Let's try and break down exactly what it says it's going to do. Warners will leverage the system's comprehensible data and predictive analysis

to guide decision-making at the green light stage. The integrated online platform can assess the value of a star in any territory and how much a film was expected to make in theaters and on other streams. That's kind of like the basic premise then. So it's an AI system that can predict what is going to make the next like billion dollar property slash, you know, combination of actors to make. Lots of money. Green lighting movies will no longer be up to human beings at Warner Brothers.

It'll literally be an algorithm that takes the data of who. who's in it and what type of story it is, I guess, and like who's involved or what type of movie it is and be like, it is this year, so this will make this much money. Here's the budget you should give it, or is it worth it, or you should release it in 10 years or something like that? It just sounds ridiculous. And although I do trust computer algorithms to some degree, I don't think that that's a great thing for art.

because all it's going to do is, is like, there's, there has to be other factors that you're not going to be able to input into that algorithm. You can't put every single detail into the, into the algorithm. You're not going to be able to put like how the movie feels,

right? Yeah. Not yet, anyway. Like, it's just, it's, it's,

it's almost like a really reductive way of looking at art. And, and not really understanding what art is. It's just a number, to these people and it's so sad because it's everything that we've been making fun of for so long. Do you know what makes me think of? Have you guys seen that episode of Black Mirror with Bryce Dallas Howard where everyone's kind of ranked on a number system?

It's kind of like taking that idea but applying it to like a business model. So you can imagine like the rock would have a very high number like numerical value on his. Oh yeah. Star power thing. So every fit like yeah like they'll take okay we've got some some some. property we can use, like, let's plug in the algorithm, see what, you know, what cast it can fill up. Oh, Kevin Hart.

Oh, the rock. And it's just like every film, like, it's going to be predicted that way, at least on the big Hollywood kind of vehicle projects like that. Yeah. I'm interested to see how it works out. Because who knows? Like, it would be hilarious if Warner Brothers just started making much better movies after this point.

Yeah. It would be hilarious if it was like, turned out to be the best thing ever. Because there's so many ideas that studios have where they look at an IP and they're just like, oh yeah, the lone ranger, that's something. Like, just throw it out there and then it just flops and nobody likes it and nobody wanted it and it's just like... John Carter. Yeah. It's like they're essentially robots already the way they think.

So, I don't know, this might not be a big difference. Disney already has an AI behind the scenes. That's how they greenlit like all that Lion King. Yeah, probably. Yeah, this one's just news. This one's just public. They converted Walt Disney into a computer AI. They have his soul in the computer.

I was thinking about this earlier, because I knew we were going to be talking about this, and we've joked about this for so long. And this is a tangent, but it will come back around and make sense. You know, there are those apps you can get for your phone that are like plug-in visual effects so they can have like a missile shooting off and like crazy stuff that would have just been insane. When I was like 13, I had tons of those. Yeah, like imagine a kid. like the 80s being handed that and how like insane that must have been like I'm thinking the

natural progression of that is like decades down the line we're going to be able to have these like systems and like AI like algorithms and everything that can just they know how to make a movie because there is like a formula to it and like it's just like drag and drop plug and play like we're really going there and it's becoming so easier and easier that it really makes me wonder what everything's going to look like in 50 years. even, maybe even before then. There's going to be streaming services that just produce a bunch of

like robot produced content like that. It'll just be like a completely AI manufactured app. It would be up to the limitations of like the programmer at that point. Yeah. Because we'll start seeing them and they'll be hilarious at first.

There'll be there'll be beta versions of this. You know, you know those I guess there's some YouTube videos on this and some of them are absolutely hilarious, where they take AI programs to basically write a Harry Potter novel based on, they feed it all the information of other Harry Potter novels that exist, and then they're like, okay, now make a chapter. And it's the funniest shit in the world. It's just so ridiculous. There's also like some good subredits where they basically take all the information from other

subredits and other commenters and the titles of posts and the links and et cetera. And, There are subredits that are literally just entirely filled with bots pretending to be subredits. So there's like subreddit simulator. And then there's one with a better algorithm called subreddit simulator GP2 or something like that. And some of those posts are just the funniest shit in the world. They're either like nonsensical or just like unintentionally perfect in a way. You got to check some of them out. Some of them are really funny.

Yeah. It's like such a stereotype for the most popular. influential filmmakers that make these ridiculous movies like Avatar and like the Hobbit movies and all this like Peter Jackson, James Cameron, John Favro. They're all obsessed with the technology aspect and they're using things like VR already to assist in making their computer animated movies basically. So if they're like the forefront now and we can predict that eventually that stuff is going to be feasible to have in our homes, like what is going to be capable, you know, just from someone's basement effectively. eventually just because of the technology advancement. It's really interesting to me. I mean, like, we kind of already have that. It's called source filmmaker. But it's, yeah, I was thinking about that too.

Right? That's kind of like mocap. You can use it for mocap, the Xbox Connect. Oh, yeah. Yeah, true. So people have that, VR is kind of that too. You can like use motion tracking in your house to do, yeah, full body tracking or just to make something in your house if you want. Yeah.

I've known artists who have done that. it's cool. You don't need to get James Cameron to do shit like that. And it's going to be even easier like 50 years from now. So it'll be great unless it's the AI making all the movies. Yeah. I'm just wondering if, so imagine like the most surprise hits of the past 20 years or something. Like whether or not Avatar is original in concept, it is technically an original

IP. Do you think an algorithm could have predicted that it would be the top selling movie of all time at the time, James Cameron's avatar? Because there weren't any like really big stars in it. What was the main guy like Sam Worthington? Is that who is? Sam Worthington. Yeah. So he's Saltana. Nobody knows who that is. Michelle Rodriguez. Yeah, it's like a bunch of... And they're all blue aliens yeah. James Cameron. Yeah. Just technology was the hype about it. But how do you plug that into the algorithm? How do you how do you input that data? How can you tell it that it's like a technological breakthrough? Yeah. We're getting to a point now where if we see a trailer for a film like Avatar, it's not impressive just based on the technology alone anymore because we have been seeing films like that for

whatever since it came out basically. Just these huge, ridiculously, you know, vast films where you see like everything exploding and just thousands upon thousands of things on the screen at once. Like, it's almost like a race for quality now that things are going for like there's so much shit being made the only things that are really of note are things like cats that are just a complete failure or you know things that are really good that people are talking about on amazon prime or netflix and stuff like that indie stuff a two four well like the lighthouse like that had a like a weirdly huge reception in terms of like online you know conversation which i thought was really interesting interesting to see, like, that typically you would never see a response like that for a movie

that strange and weird. Yeah. For, like, indie movies. Yeah. It is, it is getting better. I mean, like, people are becoming more aware of smaller films. It's even more so for the games industry. I feel like the games industry, like, indie is where it's at.

All of the best games of the year are, like, indie games. Like, fucking second highest selling game of all time is Minecraft and, like, Undertale is a huge hit. And, like, yeah, you can, you can make an indie game. and people will fucking pay attention to it. It's a lot more difficult for films, but we are getting closer to that point where it is people are paying attention.

Yeah, because as soon as you're plugged into that machine and there's just obscene amounts of money, like monopoly money on levels, none of us could even like even really understand. Like, of course, like they wind up being these watered down products compared to these risky little films with like tiny budgets and comparison. Yeah, and I mean like at the same time, time though, regardless of what happens at the studio level, because it's becoming easier than ever for

people to make independent films, I mean, it doesn't really destroy art, even if the studio films are not going to make anything artistic anymore. And that's part of the reason why indie games at this point flourish is because AAA is down the shitter. It's like every AAA title is just like absolute dog shit everyone's favorite series getting ruined and micro transactions and like one of the most predatory entertainment industries

that exists so people are like oh I'll just play Undertale I'll play Minecraft so I mean yeah if the film industry becomes as predatory then I think more people will jump ship at the same time

and turn to Indies yeah there's always going to be a market for movies made by people. So I'm not worried. But it's just sad. Yeah, we'll see what happens. Is it a concept? It's just a little Orwellian, I guess.

Yeah, because, I mean, it doesn't even really affect just the film industry. Like, how long have people been predicting, like, how certain jobs are quickly going to be made irrelevant just by technology advancing? Yeah. Like, it's already happening around us all the time. Mm-hmm. Should have learned to code. Yeah.

All right. There's another movie-related news thing. Take it away, Ralph. It's about Parasite. Everyone wants to buy Parasite. It was between Netflix and HBO. They were buying. They were really desperate for it.

But HBO ended up getting it. I think they're going to make it a miniseries. Yeah. But, I mean, if it's successful, they'll just make it a series like they did with big little lies. So that's what's going to happen. And it'll make tons of money. Because people love parasite. It's made over $100 million worldwide.

Yeah. Really? Wow. Yeah, I'm not surprised. That's really cool. Everybody's fucking heard about this movie. Yeah. The average filmgoer or the average film lover, I guess, someone who is excited about movies but doesn't necessarily see a lot of foreign or indie titles,

those people have heard of this movie and a lot of them have seen it. Like, there's serious hype around this movie. And that's awesome. I think that's great. Do you think there's like this craving for like original art films like that? Like such a craving that they'd want to see parasite. Yeah. As opposed to all this other crap that's in theaters like cats and a superhero movie or whatever.

It must be. Yeah. People just want to see good movies. Yeah. Now I'm kind of like playing it back to our earlier conversation that we just had because like it almost seems as though original films with a budget is still happening. They're just Korean movies. It's like, wow

The landscapes change China too Like there's that movie The Mermaid That made hundreds of millions of dollars It's probably not good though Yeah Let's be honest No I've seen it

It's okay It's the guy made show in soccer Stephen Chow yeah I liked it It's no it's no Shaolin soccer It's no Kung Fu hustle Absolutely But it's not that

But it's still solid Yeah If something's really successful in China I'm immediately skeptical about what kind of movie it is because they have very different tastes than I do. Sure. Yeah.

Honestly, I think more people would be jumping on these kind of movies if it was simply just easier for people to get hold of them, you know? Like we always are having problems behind the scenes with movies being released in America and Canada, but I have to wait sometimes up to like six months for some of these films to be released over here.

So the moment these companies realize that the easier It is for the consumer to get a hold of their product. Like, the more people are going to be talking about it, and the more news is going to spread like this. Like, thank God for the Internet. So we're able to spread our love for things like the Lighthouse and Parasite and stuff, and people are enjoying it because, of course, they're great, you know. Like, the Golden Globes, the director came up and he had his cool speech that was spread around,

and there was a great response to that. Yeah. There's some good coming from it for sure. I'm really proud of my favorite bong. He's the best. Everyone making articles like a bong hit. Yeah, I think what wound up helping him is that he directed a few English language features that were successful enough that people were like, I like this guy. And then people were like, oh, you know, they see a foreign film and maybe they might be unsure of it at first, but they know like, oh, I liked Snowpiercer.

It says it's from the director of Snowpiercer. I think that might have helped, actually. Yeah. Yeah. Although I don't think his American films are as good as his Korean films, but still. I also agree. Yeah. It could be turned into a miniseries and still be fine.

My problem is that, like, a lot of Asian stories being adapted into a North American setting, a lot of the time just don't work as well. And with Adam McKay's name attached to it, it's not sounding great, honestly. I don't really like him. But the old boy remake was so good. Oh, God. Jesus. Yeah, and like the Desco remake and, yeah, just adapted into America. The Grudge remake.

Especially if Netflix got it. Wow. Imagine that. Yeah, I don't know. I'm really not a big fan of Adam McKay. No, I don't think he's going to make something as good as this film. But it's got like a good basic premise. Yeah.

They'll stretch that out. The way this article is written it, it makes it sound like Bong Joon Ho is involved in it. So who knows. Which would be great. Might be a producer or something. Maybe he'll direct the pilot. Yeah, that would be cool. Yeah, I would say it depends on his involvement, really.

Yeah. Like Scorsese directed the pilot for Boardwalk Empire. Yeah. Big directories do that stuff. Could definitely be worse. Yeah, definitely. If so many picked it up, maybe it'd be more... I think if Netflix picked it up, I'd be more worried.

Yeah. Although HBO recently has been slacking. I don't know. That game of... run season was not the best. Yeah. But I don't know about that watchman show. I've heard mixed things.

Yeah, same. Yeah. Got a good soundtrack then. Okay. I'm just trying to find, oh yeah, here we are. So people have been making, like obviously the talk about Parasite getting a North American, or sorry, just American, I guess, remake. It's been a discussion for a while, obviously, because it's a very successful foreign film

and people are always pissed off at these. American remakes, especially in our subredits. And so people have been making like troll joke article screencaps that are fake that they made before this Adam McKay thing. And so just to piss people off, there was this one posted in the subreddit. There was like really obviously fake and people downvoted. So I had to scroll a couple pages to find it. It was like Parasite American remake coming in 2022 from Sony under working title, The Job Thief, aiming for PG rating.

just like the worst things you could possibly imagine. Yeah. Oh yeah. They're saying that it'll include Amy Schumer, Kevin James, Ninja, and Tanamonjo. They'll play the Kim family. Kevin Hart and Leslie Jones portraying the Park family. It's just like it sounds so bad, but it almost sounds like it could be true. Like there's people that could definitely believe this because a lot of things are just this bad anyway.

I just think it's funny that. People are taking advantage of the situation and knowing just what would piss people off the most. I think that's so funny. I hope it's good. Yeah, cool. Yeah. Yeah, it's, whether or not it's good, I hope it brings attention to the original and Junho Bong makes a lot of money and is able to solidify himself in the industry more than he already has. I mean, he's probably like the biggest career.

and director right now, as much as I love Park Chan-Wook. But yeah, he's really moving up globally, which is insane. Park-chan Wook tried to do an American movie. It wasn't really that successful. I still haven't seen it. Stoker. He kind of just abandoned that whole thing. Didn't he do a miniseries too? Oh, yeah, I haven't seen that yet.

Was that him? Is it the little drummer girl? Something like that. Yeah, that's newer. I still have to watch that. Yeah, but I think that's an American thing. Yeah. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that

Because that's on my watch list Yeah Go Korea I love Korean movies Yeah You seem to get it Yeah Speaking of

Movies Did you guys Do you guys want to talk about 1917? I don't know I was gonna talk about a movie I was gonna tie it in somehow And then I just couldn't figure out how to do it These are both war movies

We can like tie war in We saw 1917 We all saw the new Sam Mendez the visionary director of some James Bond movies and things we lost in the fire

and also American Beauty which is his best movie Heardition as well Yeah there's a lot of forgettable ones that he has in there That was okay I think I remember having seen it I don't remember anything about it

Tom Hanks is in it There's a lot of rain He's in it yeah What'd you guys think? I liked it Once I got out of it I read Rouse review on Letterbox And I'm pretty much on the same page as him

I think Nearly in every way actually It's like a What's the best way to describe it? Like a Just like a visceral experience kind of movie Where it's all about Like the production of it and the

Just the way it was presented Because otherwise it's You know Fairly by the books kind of stuff That we've seen from films like this before you know, World War I, you know, intimate kind of look at the, you know, just the horrors of it all. But it is through the magnificent kind of set design and the just the thoughtfulness of how they put it all together that made it entertaining throughout for me. I'm curious what Adam thinks because I know he's not on the same page as us.

Yeah. So what you're saying is without the like without the technical element. it would really just be a basic war movie and nothing else, right? Yeah. On a story level, it's very surface level. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Unfortunately, I wanted to see this movie because of the technical elements. And in that way, I just, like, I couldn't get into it as much as I was hoping to. And I felt kind of cheated by the marketing in a way, because it almost felt like... Yeah, that's interesting. the one-shot gimmick didn't really serve any purpose in the movie. You know, when you watch a film like Birdman, there's plenty of tonal and artistic and very much thematic purpose towards presenting a movie in that way. Whereas in this film, I don't really feel like it helped the movie. It didn't help the experience of the movie.

And when I was watching it, like, not only are there so many spots where the places where they would cut it are just so incredibly obvious, but it didn't really feel like a single take movie. And let's ignore the fact that they just cut to hard black in the middle of the movie that they advertised as being a single take all in one shot appearing or real. to be all one take. Yeah, in real time movie. And I guess it is real time if you count that part because he passes out. Yeah. If you're like going to his point in. When I go into a movie like that, I'm hoping to see something really meticulously coordinated or beautifully shot.

And by the end of it, I see Roger Deacon's name there. I'm like, holy shit, that was Deacons? Like, it didn't really feel like a movie from him that, you know, I could. could compare to ones where I've been like insanely impressed by it. Like, yes, the one shot, pretend one shot element makes it slightly better than if it were shot really blandly. But like most of the movie, it just, it didn't even feel like that's what it was. It's like you barely notice it at all.

I watched it with people that didn't see the marketing and they were like, oh, like, I didn't even know that it was trying to be like a one shot movie. And I felt that way watching it. It was really weird. It felt like a really wasted opportunity when that's what the marketing was. That's interesting because I went in completely blind. I hadn't even seen a trailer. I didn't know anything about any of this marketing.

So for me, that really wasn't an issue. And I didn't have like the, I thought it really came across. Like it was kind of meticulously shot and put together in the way, because it was like every sequence was presented as, you know, a oneer, effectively with the hidden kind of cuts in there. But even with that, There's still like minutes of footage where so much coordination had to be, you know, sorted out. There's two specific points, I would say.

And they got a lot of playtime in the trailer, those two scenes. Yeah. That's part of why I feel cheated. Most of it is just two people walking around. Okay. Yeah, but I don't really agree with the Roger Deacons. Like, I'm not really feeling like one of his movies because I really enjoyed the way it was shot more than anything. Yeah.

I thought it looked great. It was very clever. Especially a coast or that's that city that's lit at night. Like that all looks amazing. That was incredible. But man, like you said, on a story level, there's just not a lot going on, really. And it has like a lot of those, like the checklist of war movies. Like he goes in a basement and he finds like a baby and a woman.

Yeah. And then he leaves them. You can't eat that. He needs milk. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. It happens to have it.

So much cheesy. There wasn't like an emotional scene. Yeah. It didn't work, really. The milk thing was definitely the weakest, you know, aspect to me. I didn't really see the point in that kind of set up payoff. Like, normally if you're going to do something like that, it's for something vital. But that one in particular was like, okay.

Yeah. I enjoyed more like the silent moments or like when it was facial acting, like the two main guys just walking around or like reacting to things. I thought then they were great. It was like the dialogue scenes that I thought were more forced. The dialogue was terrible. Some parts, yeah. It was super cheeseball.

There was some like cheesy stuff, but that really didn't bug me that much. You guys just hate British people? What's your problem? Yeah, that's it. You got me. Well, some of it felt cheesy because of the music, I was about to go into the music. In an experience movie, I kind of want to feel like I'm there. And we just saw a film come and see that has a lot of, like, a lot of moments that are really disturbing and messed up because of the,

way it uses sound and here was like a very it wasn't bad music but it just took me out of the horror of war it wasn't great music it kind of just felt like it lacked the intensity it lacked the intensity of what i was watching like when he was running across the battlefield like bombs are going off and he's like knocking into people too so like some people were laughing in the theater yeah and but they're playing this hopeful music and i'm like if you just let the moment just play out without the music then people could just kind of read into it however they want yeah the music i thought It pissed me up a lot, actually. Yeah, there were a few moments.

It was my least favorite thing about the movie was the music in particular. It was just too much. Like, just let, like, you've already got all the pieces in play, and there's enough sort of, like, to, you know, visualize and watch. Like, you don't need to play this kind of overbearing music all the time that sounds really familiar to what Newman's done for years now. Yeah. You mentioned Road to Perdition, and it's a problem I have with that movie, too,

where it's just stop with the music, okay? like you don't have to tell me how to feel constantly. Like it helps sometimes, but just all the time it starts to just become irritating and distract from the scenes. Yeah, it ruins the moments where they do use it well. There are probably three different points in the movie

where I thought the music worked fine. And it was more of like a tonal thing. So when they're getting the orders near the beginning of the movie and the general or whatever his ranking is is telling them, you got to do this, tell them to stop the battle. There's really kind of like tense music going on, but it's not overbearing.

There's this, it's very subtle. Yeah. And you can tell it's there and it's helping the tone. It's helping you experience the intensity of what's going to happen. It's got like this kind of foreboding nature to it. And then for most of the movie, it's like it feels so forced. It feels too loud, too overbearing. trying to influence emotions that aren't even necessarily in the film

or would be better without the music. As soon as they leave their trench and they're going to the other trench and they're like kind of like walking slowly with their guns out like we're not sure if there's still Germans in this trench or whatever walking slowly around and the music's going like and then like this the music stops immediately when they like go around the corner I'm like holy fuck this is the cheesiest shit it's like at that moment I was just like emotionally checked out and I couldn't get back into it the rest of the movie no matter how hard they tried it wasn't just like the single moment that like ruined the movie if the rest of the movie was fine then that would be another story but like the rest of the movie was just basically that to some degree and I just I couldn't take it

seriously, which is just so sad, because I was actually looking forward to this. You could even say I wanted to enjoy it, but I just, it was really difficult for me to take seriously the entire time. Everything was just like really overdramatic and cheesy. I really didn't think it was that. I thought there was more positives than negatives for sure. I agree with a lot of what you're saying, Adam, but the positives, like I think overweigh that, like the technical aspect of it. I don't know. Music affects me. There is something. It really does. Yeah, there is something tonally off about it, too. Because, like, it is so staged and it is so precise.

And it kind of loses that, like, war-like feeling of that intensity. Like, that saving Private Ryan, which is very quick cut and the high shutter speed and all that. I think that's more visceral than what this is. Yeah. Which is beautiful, but it's not... I'm not getting that same gut punch. It doesn't help the movie. Uh-huh.

Like Dunkirk is, like, the pacing and that is crazy. And the use of time is, like, very well. weird, but I found that way more intense. Both the music and the editing in that film help the film. Yeah. Whereas this just feels like it would help a different movie. Why couldn't this be five shots? You know, you can have really long takes that are super impressive.

It's just like, is the one take thing going too far now? Is it just like a, we got to, if you have a long take, it's going to be good. It just feels contradictory to what the movie is trying to be tonally. Like, they're not the same. It feels like it's different movies trying to be the same movie and just conflicting with each other. That's kind of what pisses me off about it is like I was going into this hoping to see some sort of like art film. And then it turned out to be just a really basic war movie with some extra icing on top. That just pissed me off because if I knew it was going to be that, I wouldn't have bought a ticket.

I'm really not interested in seeing basic war movies even if there's a little bit of icing on top. Like Hacksaw Ridge? Yeah, I'm really... I like basic war movies. Especially if they're corny. I think it's better than Haxor Ridge. I think it's... Yes, I think it's better than Hacks are rich.

A lot of people have a huge boner for basic war movies, and I'm just like, I can't. I understand that there's a huge market for it, but I just like, I'm not interested. A lot of that stuff just didn't bug me. Like, I kind of liked the simplicity of how it began. I think it did sagged later on in the movie, but I did like the way it was like, you just have two characters. They're given a goal. It's really, so really simple, but difficult to achieve goal and what they have to go through.

It's like a journey movie. It's almost like fucking Lord of the Rings or something where it's just a tiny group and they've got to get from A to B. And, you know, all the chaos that's in the middle is really what is the interesting part about it, you know. The one aspect of it kind of enhanced the journey for me. Like you really felt like you saw the entire journey of how they got from A to B. I think that's what they were going for, but you're right. It does sometimes conflict with the visceral nature that like war movies are known for, like some of the better ones like, you know, like, you know,

like, Dunkirk, I think that's one thing that film nailed comparatively. But I didn't mind like a lot of these things. Like, yeah, they did bug me and they were there, but I thought overall the experience was, you know, valuable enough because I just think the time period's really interesting and they depicted it in a way that seemed, you know, fairly true to you know how it would have been with you know all the rats and the misery and the death

and the you know it's very heavy in that sense and you know I enjoyed a lot of it yeah when it was clear what the plot was going to be when they got their orders I was like hell yeah I was still on board at that point and I was I was thinking in my head that the simplicity of it

would be something that I was praising and you know that that alone is totally fine the beginning's great it reminded me a like paths of glory how they were walking through the trenches just talking for like 10 minutes or so it was very cool the production design was great it started to fall apart the costumes were great it's just at its core what the movie is is just so fucking boring and stupid to me and it doesn't matter how much you doll it up with with this whole one-take gimmick that they betray in the movie and like it's not really a one-take thing anymore

And it's like, okay, fuck. It's not even pretending. You lied to me, Sam Mendez. It's the marketing that pisses me off a bit, too. I might have given this one point higher if I hadn't seen any of the marketing, honestly. Interesting. When I was watching this movie, at any given moment, any different scene that I was watching, I would think to myself, man, I wish I was watching blank.

And it would be a different movie every time. They're floating down. river, I'd be like, man, I wish I was watching The Revenant. At night, running around and almost getting shot, I'm like, man, I wish I was watching the pianist. And then other points of the movie, I was like, man, I wish I was watching Dunkirk. It's just every single bit of this movie is just so underwhelming in comparison to great movies that are essentially doing very similar things at any given point in time. There wasn't really anything new that happened in this movie. and so I'm just left wishing that I was watching something better

I understand that it does feel like something that was elevated by the technical execution of it because the story itself is very lacking but it still it still works kind of yeah it's kind of like gravity kind of I just I wish it was more epic the trailers made it seem like it was going to be this like hugely coordinated meticulous like war movie and then it was kind of for like two scenes for like not even 10 minutes it is just on an intimate scale I think the whole thing is pretty like meticulous and it's just them walking for most of it yeah but even that was meticulous it has its moments like when they're in the trench and they're scared by like a skull or something that's in the

dirt and he dips his hand in some dead body or something that was like kind of slap sticky it was kind of funny kind of but it got a visceral ooh out of me Yeah. The whole tone of the thing was very almost hacksaw-rigi. I mean, like... It wasn't like a real war. It felt like a movie. It felt like a performance.

Directly before that, when he, like, cuts his hand on the barbed wire, I was like, oh, that looked really fake. And then it was immediately answered by like, oh, it's because he sticks his hand in the thing. And, you know, by the end of it, I was like, I guess it was worth it for that really fake, like, pretend to cut yourself moment. But, you know. And, like, yeah, I don't want to spoil too much. at the same time, but so I'm just going to be cryptic about this.

When there's that explosion and it's just like, it, it, it, it felt so bizarre and cheesy just like how that was resolved in terms of like both the camera work and like the logic of what had just happened. Which explosion? Okay, spoiler talk. I assume you mean the one early on, yeah. Spoiler talk. Yeah, when there the, uh, when there's the tripwire or whatever. And it's just like, oh yeah, I'm just like covered by rubble. And it was just like there's such, there was obvious cuts there too.

And I'm just like immediately like you can't, I can't believe they marketed it as this like one shot thing when they just don't even really fucking try that much. Yeah, not really. Well, they have big actors in this too. And I guess they could have them on set for like the entire day, right? So they had to cut before their scene started at some point. Well, no, I'm not saying that there shouldn't have been cut. In Birdman, there were many cuts, right? But it was much better masked in terms of where the cuts were.

There are a couple moments in Birdman where I'm thinking, like, yeah, it was probably here. Like, it goes into like a bit of... I'm saying, like you said, the whole time, I was thinking about the one cut thing. I was thinking about, like, okay, they cut here because they needed to get Benedict Cumberbatch to come in for this day. But he wasn't going to be on... He was so distracting. It's like, I kept thinking about that and not the actual story.

That was like a weird comedy cameo. Yeah, he, like, refused to surrender or, like, give up. like have his men retreat. It was so weird seeing him at the very end is this like hugely recognizable face. I guess also because I wasn't really buying the movie. That was probably it. That's why the whole thing felt like a play to me. Because they were all those recognizable actors.

It's so like precise and how it's laid out and meticulous. It did feel like a play, yeah. I'd agree. Yeah. I was just really underwhelmed by pretty much every element. Yeah, I thought like, yeah. I don't know if it is because I don't feel lied to or anything. But it just didn't, like, I never got even remotely as annoyed as you got at the movie.

Like, I thought it was, at its worst, serviceable and above it, just, you know, pretty entertaining. A way of presenting a story like this, I hadn't seen with this skin over it. You know, I've seen plenty of movies that have this oner, continuous oner facade thing. But, yeah, it would have been nice maybe to have, you know, some scenes. sequences that were all presented in that, you know, one shot kind of style with a, you know, a little bit more in between. Because it did take me a while to figure out, oh, is the whole movie going to be like a one of then? Is that what they're going for with this? I didn't realize they were going to do that.

But they didn't really bug me. Like, it genuinely didn't. I wish you guys had seen the climb by this point. It's playing at Sundance, Ralph, if you want to catch it there. Oh, yeah? Because, like, each one of the scenes in that movie is it so. separate like one take shot and that was like that was a movie made for like I don't know 50 grand or some shit just by like two guys self-funding the whole thing there was more impressive shit happening

in that than in this movie like I was more into the nature of how that was shot and the coordination behind what was going on than I ever was in in this movie I really just I wasn't I it had the expectation of me supposed to be impressed by it and I just wasn't and I wanted to be so bad I was actually looking forward to this we have like the inverse

like responses because like I really wasn't like hyped or anything for the movie I knew nothing about it and watched any marketing and I went in and enjoyed it as a result it might have been why I don't know well I was looking forward to it I had much the same reaction as Adam but I still like the movie

I still think it's has its moments Yeah. It is solid, I think. I don't think it's terrible. I just like... Oh, no. I thought I was being negative on the movies, so I'm glad.

I'm the most upset in movies I'm just going to forget about. Yeah. And I'm completely going to forget about this. Yeah, I'm not really going to remember it beyond. How did you feel about the main character basically being killed pretty early on? Um, I mean... I don't know. kind of two main characters. He was more

of the main-ish character. I knew one of them was going to die. Like, that was pretty obvious. I didn't take his death seriously. It was really over-dramatic. I found it really kind of funny when he got stabbed, honestly. I was not into it. And I wasn't trying to hate the movie. I was just like

because he's a fucking idiot. It's the guy from Game of Thrones. What's his name? Tommon. Yeah. It's just like presenting him as this noble, like, no, he needs water. Like, what have you've been doing in this work? His friend leaves for a second. He's, oh!

He just lets himself get stabbed. What a fucking idiot. I didn't bother me, though, because they were, like, naive children. It's a very okay moment. And, like, the whole sequence of events leading up to that, where they see the planes in the sky, and then one comes crashing down, like, literally, right exactly where they are. And, like, it's so obvious that that's going to happen, but the two characters don't realize

it, because they're not the audience, I guess. The guy survives, and he's, like, on fire they pulled it was just such a weird sequence of events and I was just not on board by that point and so I just couldn't couldn't deal with it I was I was just kind of amused by him getting stabbed I quite liked that yeah I thought it established that they were willing to you know there were stakes in the in the story for me at that point I wasn't expecting it did you not expect one of them to die? I expected one of them to die, but I thought they were clearly setting up that the other one was going to die at the beginning with him slicing his hand and then putting it in

the body. I thought that was going to be some like he's going to die of some sickness or some shit. Or when the rat blows up the thing they're in. Like I thought he died there. Yeah, I don't know. It's like shot in real time supposedly. Like that was the marketing and me being familiar with the marketing. It was like, you're not going to get an infection and die from it within two hours. So I never expected that That's true And then they just cheated it Because like at the beginning of the movie

It was like oh you can make it there You're right Adam You're actually right Because if the movie had cut Or if it took place over like a few weeks That would have actually meant something I would have been like oh it's going to get infected He's going to lose his hand

But nothing happens with that Yeah exactly It's just there to subvert your expectation It was just like a slapstick moment It's just to make a go Ew. There are moments like that where it just feels like, oh, this is a movie. We need something exciting to happen.

A fucking plane flies in. Like, stuff like that. But I don't mind it. And then immediately after that, like the army shows up. Oh, yeah. And like, they don't hear them at all. And it was really weird. Yeah, they just show up.

And they walk through the house and the whole army's there. Their trucks are like already there. Yeah. There's like at least 50 people. and they're just all silently creeped up behind him on this farm. And then the guy, like, when he's running around in the town at night or whatever, and this guy comes up to him and he pulls out his gun. And then he's like, he decides to shoot him while he's running.

I found that a little comical. Like, you have this perfect moment where you can just, like, take a stance, pull out your rifle and just end his life. But instead he decides to, like, run at him with his rifles while shooting and trips and falls. Like I guess he was drunk or something, but... That guy kind of looked like a, like a CGI computer model. Might have been. I might be wrong.

I could be totally wrong, but that's what it looks like. Oh, God, there was that moment where he like fell off the waterfall. That was some bad CG. I don't know if you noticed that. Yeah. I mean, there were little moments like that didn't take me out of the movie. When the rock was like, there was a point where they cut. There was like a huge rock that went right from the screen.

Yeah. That was a pretty obvious one. That was annoying. Most of them, they didn't bother me. I was okay with it. I just wish on a story level it connected with me more and characters were better. Yeah, exactly. Me too.

And it could have cut. It could have been slightly better maybe. Who knows? Yeah, whatever. All right. I guess that's it for the discussion unless you guys have more to add. No. Okay.

I'm giving this one a five out of ten. It's not terrible, but it pisses me off. So. Yeah, like three and a half. half stars. It was seven out of ten. Yeah, I'm the same with you, Ralph. Seven out of ten. When I have to defend, like, a movie,

but I'm not even that passionate about. It makes you sound like I love it. It's just like, I had a good time. It's not something I'm going to really remember. And really, it should only be watched if you're really passionate about World War I and that kind of time frame, because it is really interesting from a historical perspective.

Or just for the technical aspects. I wish I was watching the Jackson. documentary. I was thinking about that Jackson documentary. They should not grow old while watching it. And yeah, they go kind of well together, I'd say. If you want like a more action-packed depiction of that kind of thing. I guess.

Seven out of ten. All right. Didn't it win best movie at Golden Globes? It won best drama, yeah. Best drama. Wow, drama. I'll be upset if it wins best picture at the Oscars. Yeah, I don't think it's best picture at all.

No. They might give it to Parasite. I hope that's what they do. It would be monumental if that's what happened. And I'm kind of hopeful that that would happen. It seems like this would be the year if it happened. But I don't fucking know because the Oscars disappoints so often. Anyway, there was a movie that was recommended last episode. Yes. So it was my choice to recommend. And I recommended 1985's Come and See, directed by

Elam Klimov. Is that how you say it? It's Russian, obviously, so I'm not a native speaker. But keeping on with this war theme, we've just gone from World War I now to a World War II movie.

Electric Boogaloo. The basic premise is all through the eyes of a young boy who kind of joins a Soviet resistance, who are fighting against, like, the Nazis effectively, and it's all about viewing the horrors

of war through the eyes of an innocent little child and how completely fucking ruthless and horrendous and pointless the whole thing was, a very anti-war type of stance, which isn't like a new thing for a war movie to do, but it's one of the more affecting ones I have seen. And I thought it was absolutely excellent. I don't know about you guys. Yeah, it is very hard to watch. Yeah. It's one of those like reputation movies I think that has a bit of a like this movie's gonna ruin your day type of movies and for a lot of it

I was like I'm not sure why it has that reputal and then like the last 40 minutes kicked in I was like oh my fucking god this is like this is not pulling any punches yeah it's really affecting the way it like slowly unravels starting with like a

innocent little boy and going all the way to just the look on his face says it all it's so harrowing and disturbing just watching something so innocent be dragged into such an awful pointless conflict he becomes a very wrinkly boy by the end of the movie yeah like i was reading in the trivia that the director struggled with um like the morality of putting a kid into even if it's all acting and you know on a set and everything like the morality of putting a child actor into something as hardcore as this because there's no way you can really edit around the way it's

presented like he's seeing everything around it's like the whole point of the movie but yeah dude i love the performance from that main kid i thought yeah absolutely it's all in the face yeah the makeup in this movie is like incredible like how like they make everyone look very dirty and like to crep it and just it's it's brutal to watch It really is brutal to watch the whole thing. And yeah, he was great. There's a really great progression of the character as the film goes on. Near the beginning, he's like constantly laughing and pretty indifferent towards his mother's suffering, not taking things seriously, still naive, hasn't yet experienced any real true horrors.

It's this childlike innocence that is just... snatched away as the film progresses and you can see him literally basically just turn into like an old man being shell-shocked yeah there's that moment where they're they're running away from from the home and the camera like quickly spins around and you see the just pile of bodies outside it kind of ramps up from there and just doesn't really let go it's so like chaotic and brutal. It's really hard to watch at points, especially when they're like throwing kids into like a burning

building and shit like that. Like it's really heavy. Yeah, but I feel like that's the way to do it. If you're going to talk about these types of subjects where the reality is is really disturbing.

Yeah. I think it's probably a good idea to be faithful to that. Absolutely. That's what makes it so powerful. I didn't look up a lot about the movie, but apparently it's very historically accurate to was the Belarusians were like Belarusians?

Belarusian? Belarusian? That was so Western. I'm not a history major. Neither am I. But just, I forgot I was talking about. You said it was historically accurate. Yeah, it was very historically accurate from what I know to how they're suffering and what they went through.

And that's what made it even more powerful. It's a unique perspective as well. well. Like as Westerners, we don't really know that much about Russia unless we study it. So seeing it through the eyes of people from over there is really interesting on that level alone, let alone like what actually happens in the movie. There's so much like imagery that's seared into my, into my mind now from the way they presented it. Like for some reason, the cow and the close up on the eye really stands out in my mind. Yeah. Lots of little stuff like that. Lots of great artistic moments in this movie.

Lots of great imagery. He steps on the bird eggs. There's like baby bird chicks. Just like dying. Yeah. There's a lot of really good artistic choices in this movie. The sound design I thought was like one of the best aspects. Really great, especially for the 1980s.

It's not overbearing. to any degree. It's not like it replaces what you're seeing, but it really emphasizes what you're seeing. And much of the soundtrack, there's so many points where you wouldn't even really notice that there's anything going on in that sense, unless you're trying to pay attention to it. But yeah, there's a lot of

really subtle, kind of low, bassy, droney kind of sounds that really help bring out this sort of like tension and anxiety for the viewer. Yeah, which is especially important considering there really isn't that much dialogue in the movie. Like it's like an experience the whole thing. Like there's constant chatting and a lot of the story is told through just what you're seeing. So yeah, the sound is very important to, you know, keep it cohesive. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, the film looks beautiful too. Yeah. I thought it looked gorgeous. Really well shot. The last shot was like amazing. It like went through the forest. That was a great one take. And they did that way back when, so.

Near the beginning of the film when I at least came to the conclusion that this is, this was going to be a movie that I really loved was when I noticed just how distinct and well presented each of the characters were. Even characters that are really not too important to the story, they're also. memorable like the little boy at the beginning and his dynamic with the main character even the the soldiers that show up at their house at the beginning and the guy like pretending he like took off his nose and stuff like that the way that they're talking like the guy setting up the the camera shot with all the soldiers trying to

get everybody to pose properly it's not just thrown together like each of these characters is so distinct and watchable and memorable and that really helps the movie a lot. Whereas like if these characters were like boring and bland and forgettable, these scenes might not work as well. Yeah, it feels like one of those like fly on the wall kind of movies where the depiction of everything is strangely realistic, but also there's this, I don't know, like, like magical air.

Like it feels odd, you know? Like there's something mysterious to it. Like it's unique in that way. just the dread and just the look of everything. Like, all comes together very well. I don't really have any complaints, to be honest. Yeah, it's, it's kind of like that scene where the main character meets the girl and they bond over crying and laughing at the same time.

Like, there's a really maniacal and hysterical element that is presented in this film of just like the absurdity of. war and all this trauma and conflict. It's not just, oh, feel sad, torture porn kind of movie. Like there is this kind of crazy element to it as well, which I think is really essential to capture. It's people's sanity disappearing. It's people literally breaking down their entire world's breaking down around them and trying

to process that in any kind of emotional way. It feels apocalyptic almost. Yeah. It's like hell on earth. And that's really what makes it interesting because it happened. Like this stuff was going on. Like they say at the end, like some extra details before the credits. Like it's so sick to watch and just to see these people flip-flop between just what like orders they're given and what and how people react when they're just pushed to the most extreme like limits, you know?

That was what was really interesting to me just watching these soldiers and react to what they've been. given to do with the like and then when they're captured and they've got to suddenly flip and like beg for their lives like it really doesn't hold anything back and shows just the depravity of it all like it really works on that level just to just to highlight like I'm not sure if I've really seen a better anti-war movie like than this I think it's probably my favorite one actually I did think about that movie a lot yeah that's like another film that was to watch as well. Yeah, where that film's obviously a lot more metaphorical

in the way they present the same kind of ideas, but this is really what... Way more comical, yeah. Yeah, exactly. This was more serious to me in the presentation. You know, not that I hate Salo or anything. Of course. I got lots of Son of Saul vibes from this movie,

which obviously came out much later. Possibly due to the aspect ratio, possibly due to the whole... Nazi thing. There are plenty of points in this film where it feels like very chaotic but also like very claustrophobic. And although it's not necessarily the

intentional filming style to have a movie that constantly feels tight like that, but you know, parts where it's like in the barn. Was it a barn or a church that they lit on fire? I wasn't sure. Because there wasn't like any

pews in there. I think it was a barn. It was a barn. Yeah, I'm not sure. When all of them are getting like crammed in there and like you actually see it from the interior and just everybody's like packed in there like one soldier that was one of the most uncomfortable scenes for me yeah because I was immediately feeling like claustrophobia watching that mm-hmm because you also know what happened in World War II so you can take a guess at what's about to happen yeah and if you didn't you knew what happened earlier in the movie it was to the village he came from exactly yeah so so you know it's one for the whole family so gather around

with granny and grandpa and watch this one. Yeah, a double feature with Space Jam. Yeah. I loved, like, a little detail, like, the kid bandaging up his gun. Oh, yeah. I thought that was, like, a nice irony to that. Like, look, I'm bandaging up the gun because war bad.

Like, this is more important than all the people that are dying around me. Now I've got to make sure my gun is in tip-top condition. Yeah, he doesn't really use it. He carries it around like the whole movie. Because like what else would you do? Like you're in a, you're in a war scenario. Like you're going to want to be on, even if you don't really know how to use it.

Yeah. He just winds up trying to hide it most of the time. Yeah. Because it's like, I don't know. It would only come in handy if it's like you versus one, not you versus like an entire troop. So there were certain shots where they had those like tracing bullets going past the screen. Does anybody know how that was pulled?

off or there's like fireworks or like did they just shoot above the actors or like what happened there I have a feeling they might have actually used live rounds yeah I might have to check the trivia I was looking through the trivia yesterday after I watched it this is why I want to see the criterion thing is because like I know it'll be loaded with some special features so I hope that gets a Blu-ray soon because I'd be really hyped to yeah watch all those first piece of trivia on IMDB's live ammunition was used in the film in interviews one of the actors described actual bullets passing some 10 centimeters upon his head. So no wonder it feels so real.

Holy shit. So they actually just fucking murdered a cow. Nice. That's crazy. Russia, man. Yeah. It died for art. It's fine.

Yeah. Kill a cow on apocalypse now, don't they? Yeah, that's true. Nobody has to me to eat McDonald's either. There were some really great practical effects. I was impressed when the soldier was pulling the girl by her hair because basically

if you were to take like drama class or something and you're learning how to cheat these types of I guess like fighting effects well you're taught is like the actor grabs the person's hair and then the person whose hair is being pulled

basically uses one of their hands on top of the other actor's hands and so they always have the control of holding their own weight on top of the other actor's hands. So there's no actual hair being pulled. But in this film, her hands are like dangling way in front of her. That's a great point. Yeah, it makes it very vivid. Oh yeah. Like it feels so much more real. So many other movies do the one that I had earlier described. This one, I think what they probably did was they probably had like a rope attached to her chest or

waist or something or like under her shoulders and it going through her ponytail or something so that the actor was like pulling on the rope and not necessarily like it looks like it's her I don't know I thought they just really did it yeah who knows that's right either way the effect looked really really real and that was really cool that's part of what is so good about it is despite the film being fairly not modern Cases is a long time ago now but the film feels like it is depicting the 40s. Like it doesn't feel like it was made in 1985. It feels very true to what it's trying to depict, which is so essential for how overbearing

the subject matter is. Like they had to do it just right and present it in the right way. So we weren't able to nitpick it in the way we are, you know, a film like 1917, for example, which is about, you know, subject matter just as horrible. I really enjoyed the pacing of the movie as well. There was a lot of great buildup, and as I mentioned earlier, all the characters were very distinct, and that helped with the pacing as well. But yeah, the whole last... Did you actually time it?

Was it literally, like, the last 40 minutes of the movie where that whole scene went down? Because that went on a while, but it was all so great. Like, it was perfect for what the movie should be, like this absolute chaos. It was like a Gaspar Noe's climax sort of thing. It's like, we're not going to let you go. This is gonna keep going. Yeah, I suppose it is sort of the climax of the movie in the most horrendous way possible, but you're right, it really does hammer home the point, like, if it hadn't already sold you on it to begin with by then.

Yeah. This shit was, it doesn't get much worse than this. Like, I kept thinking about Cormac McCarthy's story, The Road. You guys read or seen the movie? I saw the movie. I saw the movie. I wasn't big on the movie, but. I've seen the movie.

I'm a fan of the book, actually, and like, atmospherically has a very similar kind of feel to it, because it is like an apocalyptic scenario, and it's about just someone going through it and trying to survive in it. And, you know, you see, like, what the end of humanity brings out of people. It's like the whole point of the story. And the film has a very same sort of, you know, meaning to it in the sense where it's like this, like, this, like, look at what we are allowed to happen effectively. like this this cannot happen again type thing you know like you cannot you cannot let anything like this go on like it's so awful yeah it's a very very uh depressing but really really great really really great movie yeah yeah so it's one of those i think it belongs in that list of like you know important historical films that will right you know like shinders list like so i've saw like

a lot of these movies like great world war two movies especially. Mm-hmm. Or like ones depicting the horrors, especially, not so much the action ones. It gives you just a realistic enough of a slice to kind of empathize with what it was like. Yeah, but it's not manipulative. It's very blunt. No, no, no, no.

And how it presents it. The bluntness of it is what makes it effective. Yeah. It really isn't trying to hide like the horace. Because there's like, there's nothing you need to dramatize or like liven up, you know? Yeah. It's not. It's already the extreme.

It's crazy. Yeah. No, I've often thought that some of the scariest films to me are war movies. I think there's, like, to me, there's nothing more frightening than the truth of, like, some of the stuff that has been done historically. And the fact that it hasn't even been 100 years since this was happening makes it even more poignant to me, especially with, you know, all the endless, you know, political and war talk that's going on even now. Yeah.

Like it's important to be reminded of this kind of thing every now and again to do everything and our power to avoid it. Mm-hmm. Remind ourselves how horrendous it is. Oops. Oops. Oops. Oops.

Oops. Oops. We briefly mentioned the, I guess, live ammunition that was being used. There's a couple other shots where it's clear that probably wouldn't fly too well with acting standards placing like your actors right next to these huge explosions

they run away and then they go off and like the dirt flies and like hits the camera too like holy shit better hope that they know which way to run when you yell action you don't go the other way there are some like actual explosions happening really close to these actors

as they ran away there was the guy that like jumps out of the roof of the barn or whatever as it's on fire as other actors are throwing Maltov cocktails at it literally just like jumping out of a burning building with holy shit yeah there's a lot of impressive stuff happening here and it's like you almost don't even think about it in that way because the movie is so convincing like you're just like sucked into it and like oh yeah this is real or whatever like it flows so well but yeah there's a lot of really impressive stuff going on, both technically and coordinating.

I don't know. I was like, I felt more impressed by some of the sequences in this film, especially near the end, like, with that whole chaotic 40-minute climax or whatever. I was so much more into it and impressed by it and like all the coordination going on than I was at any moment of 1917. I knew that was coming. And like, yeah, you don't even have, it doesn't even have to be like, ooh, this was all in one take. Like, there's any given shot where I'm like, I'm impressed by how coordinated this is and how well it flows from one place to the next. And like, you're seeing all this chaos happening and people being dragged along through these crowds and like every single actor is like given something to do.

Yeah, a lot of crazy shit happening. Yeah, 1917 was just such a missed opportunity. Because of that because there's like these visceral reactions you get out of people Or like we can really ponder the horrors of war in these movies like this and it's just like an action movie Which is fine it's entertaining but it could have been something more than that and it really wasn't Sam Mendes We got to go back to 1917 but this movie It's great

It's totally different from 1917 so we should even compare it sorry totally is there anything is there anything we didn't like about come and see then because I'm struggling it made me feel awful

but that's not a complaint yeah you can't really complain if it succeeds at exactly what it was going for I there there was like maybe a moment where in the scene

where he's like going through the mud like oh they're on the island over there and she like doesn't tell him and I felt like that was a little pushing it in terms of being over dramatic. That was the one sequence where I was like, okay, you're

kind of hamming this up, but I feel like I might feel differently about it on a second watch. I feel like knowing what it is in like the context of what's happening and the reveal and like the character being in denial and all that on a second watch I'm probably

just going to be completely okay with it. Yeah. Like I wouldn't give it a rating now. Like, honestly. Oh, you're not going to rate? It would be something high. Yeah, I don't, because it's like, I don't know. It just made me, it was beautifully crafted, but it just made me feel awful.

And it was a haunting movie about a very bad, painful subject matter. But it's great. It would be something high if I were to rate it. Okay. In the future, maybe. Near the end of the film, they're using, Ralph, do you know what? this is called? I forget the terminology for it where you basically have like a shift in the lens where the foreground and the background are both in focus at the same time. Oh, like the split focus

thing? I forgot what it's called. I forgot exactly what it's called. Maybe I just haven't noticed it in some earlier films, but I see it a lot more commonly in like 90s and so on. Yeah, it was really interesting. I couldn't tell you the origin to show up at the end. It was really effective either way. Yeah, very briefly. It was the girl and he was in the background. I forgot. There were a couple shots.

And they all came kind of like in that end sequence. Yeah. And then they showed real Holocaust footage and that was interesting. Uh-huh. There was the footage of like Hitler and then they showed the picture of Hitler, like baby Hitler, as he was shooting like that portrait of him. Yeah, in the puddle. What did you guys get out of that?

It was interesting. I thought that... To put that in there too was very, very... like challenging. Yeah. It was it was an interesting decision. I was more on board with the shots of like the starving dying people after that point like went back to like the regular movie for a minute and then it goes back into more black and white footage as he's shooting the Hitler painting. I thought that the editing was a little bizarre in that moment where everything was getting reversed and it went on for a while. But

Yeah, well, you got to think back to like the Nazi propaganda movies at that time. Yeah. And to me, it was like, it was like a taking that footage and messing it up, like jumbling it, making it like this nightmare almost, you know, like like almost a defamation of it. Like graffiti. Like, you know. Right. Kind of like that.

Yeah. And then you see the baby and it's like maybe he thinks he like he could have gone that. same way, maybe. Like, he could have become that monster, too. And in some ways, he has, because he's a very different, like, person at the very end of the film, and he is at the beginning. I don't know. That's kind of how I took it.

Yeah, I'll have to see it a second time to really know how I truly feel about that last part. It's very, it's very hard to watch, but, yeah. Absolutely, yeah. The acting was fantastic, like that one shot when the guy, the main character is told. that his entire family is dead and he's like looking into the camera and you can see these like huge puddles of tears like forming in his eyes

that was a moment where I was like holy shit that was great yeah it's very emotionally resonant yeah we're just really dour because it's a hard it's a rough watch but what would you guys rate it if we want to move on to ratings

I'm giving it I was waiting for you it wasn't really hard for me to assign a rating there are certain special movies come along every now and again that when I watch and it's like I have no problem giving this a perfect like five stars which it is to me and I'm sure it'll only get better on rewatch it really affected me and it shocked me and everything it intended to do and yeah I think everyone should go out their way to try and watch it if they can especially if a nice shiny crowsy Criterion's gonna come out in the future. I'm giving this one a nine out a ten

It might be a ten when I see it again I knew I would love it too. It's one of those things where it's like just been sitting on my watch list for a while I'm like yeah, this looks like probably something I would enjoy Sort of thing, so I'm glad I finally got around to it. Yeah, I just didn't want to watch it, you know Thanks, Alex. Yeah, exactly So I'm glad you finally forced me out Yeah It's the same reason I haven't watched like salo either you know there are loads of

movies like that. We're like, yeah, watch that another time when I don't want to be miserable for a bit. And then Ralph, you're abstaining from a rating. Sure, for now. It would be something high, like a nine or a ten. All right. I would just like to see it again. Sure.

It's a lot to take in. Yeah. I can't like watch it and be like, oh, that's an eight out of ten. I was just like, holy shit. Like, whatever. Yeah. Just thinking about it. But yeah, you can't just keep putting it off.

but at some point you have to like face reality and that's what the film's ultimately about. It's like, yep, this happened. Just look at how fucking horrible it was. People are capable of this. Yeah, yeah. So it's important that we don't repeat that. Exactly, yeah.

All right, question time? Yeah, let's do it. Let's do some questions. If you want to leave your own questions, head over to the Sardonnacast Reddit, where there will be a thread. You can ask us whatever you like. So let's start off with this one from bird,

And uh, but um, Bada-Badum, who asks, and I'm sorry, this leaves you out a little bit, Adam, so I hope you don't mind me talking about it. Whatever. To Ralph and Alex, what are your final thoughts on Mr. Robot now that it's over? I know you're making a video, Ralph,

but, um, top level thoughts, well, while people, you know, wait, or the video might actually be out by the time this goes up. No, I don't think so.

It might be. Definitely part of it, because I'm going to post part of it to patrons, but it was, it was great. Yeah, I finished it. Yeah, I finished it yesterday. And, uh, without,

don't worry, I'm not going to spoil anything, just as vague as possible. I was really happy with the conclusion of it. I wasn't sure how they were going to do it. And I'd heard that people were really satisfied with it. And I said, okay, we'll see about that. And the last, like, two episodes are really clever, the way they, they'd choose to take it. They were like a modern day back to the future almost.

Like, just those, episode. It was so fun and like interesting that I had no idea like if it I guess we can't spoil anything yeah. But like I had no idea what was happening, which is great. That's a very in a good way. It's a very mystery robot. You're just sat there like salivating waiting for answers. But the story really did come together very well. All the characters served their purpose and like Darlene and Elliott had a great arc this season. Yeah. Their final moment was great. Like it's just a lot of good writing and like on a tactical level I think the show is amazing. Oh yeah.

It's so impressive on a production level of land. It was just no dialogue that entire episode. It was like the fifth one, I believe. It was just like an action scene of them hacking into this building and then running away. It was fantastic. And there's so many moments like that. It felt like effortless the way it was put together.

And then episode seven is like a Hitchcock film. It has five acts and it's like letterbox, but it's fucking brilliant. It takes place in one room, basically. And the music, I think. thought stepped up as well. I really liked the soundtrack in season four. Macwell stuff and the use of like unoriginal music or licensed music. Yeah, yeah.

Like that. But you can't really ask more when, like, as soon as it ended, I was like, oh, that's the kind of ending where I kind of want to go back to the beginning and watch the whole thing again now with now I know everything that happens. And I did so much. Oh, did you? Nice. Yeah.

I can't talk about anything. But there's like stuff I noticed where I was like, oh my God. God, that's totally, that totally makes sense now. It's that thing we keep saying about where these planned out stories are the most, you know, gratifying. And it's just another example of it. Like, it is just a great, it's not even like stupidly long either. It's only four seasons. It's very digestible.

It's on Amazon Prime. It's like breaking bad, like that. Mm-hmm. These shows aren't, yeah, very weird. And in a way, it feels more like they're literally reincorporating footage from season one into season. for like effortlessly like it totally feels organic a part of the story and it makes sense yeah yeah yeah like that level of planning is kind of new but these these shows aren't usually exactly planned out I bet there's things they made up uh for what I know Vera was made up as a character like for their

show but considering you have all this stuff and these plates you got to balance it did a pretty good job of resolving everything in a very satisfying way unlike game of Thrones or something like that. Yeah. Yeah, I was really glad they nailed it. Yeah, sorry you can't engage with this Adam, but it's a good show. Yeah, I think we're pretty much done. We'll wait for Ralph's video, I'm sure he'll cover everything of note. Yeah. Okay, dokey then. Let's move on to this one from Motionless Upon the Air. It's a nice one. If it were proven that all the conspiracy theories around Hollywood are true, parentheses, cult gatherings, pedophilia, sex trafficking, etc. And every mainstream

filmmaker and actor is involved in some way. Would you have a harder time enjoying mainstream American cinema? Yeah, if it was like some grand conspiracy? That would be crazy. I don't even think the conspiracy theories are saying that literally every Hollywood major Hollywood director is in on this shit. Every single one.

Yeah, I don't know what they... Yeah, how would it affect your... I don't... I... I... It's just They're genuine people working in Hollywood, I think Yes, of course they are What is, like, especially a conspiracy theory?

It's that little doubt in your mind. Yeah, exactly, I don't know That's how these conspiracy theories flourish From that like 1% of doubt you have in your mind And it just spirals from there I don't fucking know I don't know how to answer that question It's such a weird, like hypothetical

It is a bizarre hypothetical Uh, yeah, I don't know Yes? I'm still able to enjoy a good Polansky movie whatever sure Rosemary's baby's good but it's different if it's every director yeah depends the scale

like the entire industry yeah if we found out this was a thing like it would be such phenomenal news I don't know how anyone could really recover like the whole art form wouldn't even struggle would be like a ridiculous thing like the big Hollywood directors

it would be over Hollywood would die Maybe that's a good thing They'll keep them from doing AI movies Anything to stop them Yeah Okay Da Deadpool Da has this to say

Opinions on Golden Globes Opening Monologue If you watched The Golden Globes Happened I guess Yeah I didn't watch any of that I didn't watch any of it But did you guys not watch any of the

You know Ricky Javees Yeah I saw that I think we just insults some... It was posted on Reddit. Everyone in the audience. What did you think of it? Yeah, it was funny. I wasn't like as taken aback or surprised by it as a lot of people seem to be.

He's been trashing the Golden Globes every time he's on. He just gets a little bit more... Yeah, it seemed like people were reacting more this time for some reason. I think because he mentioned Epstein or something. He did. He joked about him being his... Everyone in the audience being Epstein's like friends. Yeah.

Or something of some shit like that. Yeah. It's like, yeah, maybe if you didn't know who he was and you saw him come up and you made all those jokes, then maybe I could see being shocked. But if you know anything about him in his form of comedy, then it was just his stand-up. But with a... It's like the only thing that made the Golden Globes worth talking about. Yeah.

Which is why they invited him back. Yeah, exactly. Because then you... He knows he can get away with it. They keep inviting him back. He keeps pushing it more and more every time. Yeah. God bless him.

At this point, he just says he doesn't care. He's like, this will be the last time. I don't care. Yeah, he, like, mocks the running time of it. He, like, pimps his own shows out on shit during the speeches and stuff. He didn't give a single fuck. It was insulting, like, so many people to their faces, including, like, Tim Cook from Apple. It's like, oh, yeah.

Yeah, that would not fly as well at the Oscars. The Golden Globes are more of a joke. Absolutely not. It's like a drunken rehearsal for the Oscars. Yeah. They don't care. It was fine. A drunk rehearsal.

Yeah, the Golden Globes are boring. Yeah, like, why, like, who would care otherwise aside from him, I'm saying. You know, like, people barely care about the Oscars even, let alone the Golden Globes or the Bafters or any of this shit. It's such a, like, but on the same sort of line. if we're talking about comedy and that and whatnot. I got a count to ask this. Has this to ask. When you guys discussed your favorite actors,

you autistic cunt piece of shit, barely mentioned any comedy actors. Is that supposed to be like a joke? So with this question, I ask, who are your favorite comedy actors and comedy performances? Well, Nicholas Cage. Anna Ferris.

That's pretty great. I think she's hilarious. Simon Pegg. Yeah, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, I'd say both of them. Yeah, it depends what you, like, because there is a good comedic performance, and then there's a good comedic performance that also has a bit more to it, if you know what I mean. Like, I think Simon Pegg is actually a pretty decent actor at the end of it, so it does elevate the cornetto trilogy or something like that.

So he is able to do, yeah, it's all about range, isn't it? Like, if you're able to do a bit more, then it brings more to the performance. like Robin Williams or someone like that, you know, he's able to do the whole gambit or Jim Carrey even. You know, he can be goofy and ridiculous, but you also can be in Eternal Sunshine or something more thoughtful.

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, but I don't know, because then the ones where Jim Carrey is the wackiest are not like the best movies. And then he's like more held back in like Eternal Sunshine and it's like, oh, okay, this is great. So it really depends. on what you want out of a movie, I guess, or a performance.

Yeah. You know, because Bill Murray is really funny, but he does the same thing every time. So it's like, is that a great performance or maybe I just like him? Maybe. I love Sasha Baron Cullen. Oh, yeah, that's a great one. I think he's incredible. Yeah, that is a great answer.

His determination to fuck with people in real life is what makes him stand out. Great. Boread is a great movie. Yeah. Even shout out to Rowan Atkinson. Mm-hmm. Yeah. He's great.

Like, yeah, he's as much as I like to shout on Mr. Bean. Very good as Mr. Bean. Yeah. It's an iconic role. Yeah, man. You can't take that away from him. Charlie Chaplin. I just pulled out like a guy from the 20s.

Could think of anything else. Yeah, Sasha Baron Cohen's a good one. Yeah, that's my answer. I can do it. Shmi, shmi, who, pa, pa has this to us. Do you think a movie is better if it is a cinematic achievement? For example, giving Toy Story extra credit because it is the first animated feature film. Computer animated feature film.

Did they just write animated? Yeah, they wrote animated. They did mean computer animated. That's part of what engages you in the film, right? Is that it's the first time doing something. Like the Avatar film is the first time it was Pandora. Like you saw Pandora and this fully CGI work. world was rendered like realistically and you were engaged in it. If you tried doing that same thing

now, it wouldn't be as impressive. Yeah. Well, how many times on this show alone have we given films points purely for being the film to start something, start some style or, you know, way of presenting things that just inspired so many people. Like, I think it's really important. It is interesting to watch. Yeah. Where, like, how films have informed each other and where things come from. It's crucial to understanding the context even. Like, if you show a kid the original Toy Story now, they might mock

it for how it looked and want to watch Toy Story 4, you know, but, you know, that doesn't make Toy Story one a worse movie just because of that one aspect. There's more to it. It depends on what kind of achievement, really. Because like there are some movies where

you could list an achievement, but it's still not a great movie, but it has its place in cinema history. Like, uh, exactly. The first usage of computer generated effects in a movie at all was just like what? It was like a sequence of somebody's hand or something that was just on a computer screen for some other random movie that I don't think I've seen sort of thing. Like there's an achievement in there.

I don't know. Or tron. That's an achievement. Yeah, in a way. Yeah. Yeah. It really depends on. what the achievement is and how it plays into the film.

Like, does it help the movie? Yeah, and how much, yeah, like, it affected cinema and all that. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so I don't really have, like, a hard-hitting answer on that. I would just say it depends. Mm-hmm. Danny O Movie Guy asks this. What's a film you love that carries a negative connotation

as a generic film bro, in quotes, movie? and does the stigma surrounding that film cause you to enjoy it less? So we're seeing this more and more how like, you know, just the typical gatekeeping in, you know, fandoms. Like it's all about putting people into categories and like, you're not a real one because of this and that. An example for me would be like, fight club, I guess. That's considered like a film bro movie. Yeah. Everyone like, you know, considers it that way.

But then when you watch you, like, oh, this is actually really good. It doesn't make me enjoy it less, though. Like it's never gotten to that point where it makes me like purely for its reputation, make me dislike a movie. But that's probably the closest one. Mine would probably be Kill Bill. Love that movie a million times. I love Kill Bill 3000.

What's Kill Bill 3000? I was making a reference to Avengers Endgame. Oh. For no reason. No, yeah. Kill Bill is like one of my favorite movies ever. I would say it's probably my favorite Tarantino movie Either that or Pulp Fiction but I think Kill Bill's First

I feel like Tarantino movies have that kind of reputation Yeah which is a shame because they're great movies Except deaf proof Oh Yeah man I would say I would say Pulp Fiction I would say something like that That's what I see unlike a like people make fun of people like Pulp Fiction

For no good reason I don't know It's fine It's whatever Just because a lot of people enjoy something doesn't mean that it's unjustified. It doesn't mean, like, even if some people are a part of a bandwagon, that doesn't discredit the film. Yeah, that's why I like reminding people to like what they like.

Yeah. You know, like, so what if some people, you know, hate or like something that you'd feel the opposite on? Like, if you genuinely feel that way, then what does it matter? Yeah. If you like fucking Fight Club or Pulp Fiction. Yeah. Like, tons of people will shit on Christopher Norris.

Nolan because there's a huge fan army bandwagon behind him. But like, you also have to recognize that there's reasons why he's considered a great director, you know? Like, there's some things he does really well. Like, he might not do a great job every single time. But, like, there's reasons to appreciate him. Right. I would like to see these people with $150 million and they have to make a Batman movie.

Christopher Nolan did it really well. There are people who shit on others for liking Kubrick. It's just like, you don't even understand. why people love Kubrick so much. People like complaining that like if you like Kubrick, it means you're like up your ass or something. What the fuck? Are you serious?

Yeah. Kubrick's one of the most influential, like greatest directors ever. Yeah, it doesn't, the amount of people behind something won't cause me to appreciate it less. It's what it means to me. It doesn't really matter what it means to other people. Couldn't have said it better myself. One more?

Let's do this one then. a nice, light-hearted one to end on, in a show full of such death, horrors, and misery. C. Meyer 7 asks us this. How do you feel about shows with laugh tracks? The only one that I actually enjoy is that 70s show. Are there any you guys like? Mr. Robot has a few laugh tracks. Oh, really?

What? Ironically. Ironically. No, I hate it. I think it's so dumb. Well, like, laugh track is in, is it an artificial guy there with a button, like, clicking the button every time to make people laugh? Or a studio audience. Or a studio audience. I guess isn't as bad.

Yeah, I kind of hate them equally. Yeah? Like, it pulls me out of it so much. The only time I've put up with it was to watch all of Seinfeld, which I thought was worth it. It is a very dated thing. I feel like it's something out of the 80s and 90s. I feel like a band date. It's like in the same way that people abuse.

a film score to try and make you feel emotion where the film itself isn't really doing all that much. Laugh tracks are more or less just, hey, here's where you're supposed to laugh. And there are, you know, it's literally engraved into our human brains where there's this social aspect where other people laughing will make you laugh. It's like a, it's literally just manipulating you into feeling a certain emotion. And it's so weird, because it's not like a part of the show's universe. It's not like these people laughing are characters in the show. But yeah, I would agree that that 70s show actually works in that sense because it is, you know, it's kind of pretending to be something dated at the same time.

You know, whether or not they're doing it ironically, it actually fits with the tone of the show. But yeah, otherwise I would say I would rather not have a laugh track. And even in Seinfeld, I don't even think it's actually necessary. I think Seinfeld is like a funny enough show That it could exist without a laugh track and that's Maybe perhaps that was realized when Larry David started Curb Your Enthusiasm which obviously does not have a laugh track And I find much funnier than Seinfeld honestly

Yeah it frees you up a little because you're not on this set You're not just like Because Larry David could go like out in the city and to his car and do all kinds of crazy things It's very limiting to just perform in this like setting this one setting but people like it. It does well. They think it's safe. Studios don't have faith in, like, comedies anymore unless you have, like, a laugh track in it.

They just don't have faith in it. I guess they've always been that way. But they just don't have faith in that people will just find something funny. So they have to put stuff like laugh tracks in it. It's not nearly as common as it used to be. It used to be, like, unheard of to make a comedy show without a laugh track, like a sitcom, like in the 90s. And then Malcolm in the middle came out and was like, okay, well, we can actually make something funny without a laugh track. They're like, oh, okay, we don't need it.

Okay. So. I remember reading about how the always sunny crew had to, like, really fight to not have a laugh track in the show or something like that. Yeah. I could be wrong on that, but I do remember reading that. That would totally ruin the show. It would completely ruin that show. Would take away all the subtlety.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I generally do not like last. laugh tracks, but... That's the thing there, does anyone? There must be people then that like it and find it comforting. Otherwise, they wouldn't do it. I do not think that the Big Bang theory would be successful without a laugh track.

Yeah, exactly. I don't like the show either way. I don't think many people would like the show at all if there was no laugh track. Yeah. It would just be really awkward. Yeah. How about talk shows? Like late night shows.

That's more of like. A live audience thing is almost kind of like an engagement sort of thing. Although the audience can be very annoying. Yeah, they can be annoying. They have signs. They tell the audience when they laugh and clap and all that. They're manipulating you in that same way. Like, oh, you're watching this guy in his like comfortable environment, but it's not real.

Like, none of it's real. It's just these people brought in like two hours before from outside. Yeah. And they're just told to laugh and clap. But yeah, I guess the ultimate thing is it doesn't enhance. the comedy. It's just a cheap way to get laughs basically. So

of course none of us like it. Just manipulation. Pretty much. All right. I think that wraps up the questions. Yeah, some good ones in there. Cool. Excellent. There's a film recommendation.

I guess it's my turn. I wasn't really sure what to pick. Haven't had a weird one in a while. I think it would be good to to talk about a weird one. So I guess we're going to go with an animated movie from 1977 by Ralph Bakshi called Wizards. And you probably shouldn't look up too much about it. And I would even say to not really have any expectations one way or another.

other than it's weird and I think everyone should see it at least once and it's something that I think will be fun to talk about and I know this movie oh I don't know but um he's I would say

after you see the movie we we should uh do a little research on the director uh because he's kind of an interesting character and I think that that would play into the discussion for sure is this like a blue ray thing or is it a I have a blue ray I don't know how easily accessible it will be to find it

But we got tons of time Because we're recording this episode pretty early So if you need to track down a copy But yeah I own a Blu-ray for this movie Yeah this isn't to be confused with the wizard With first savage right? Yeah 1997

Ralph Bakshi Wizards Animated film All right Okay thanks everybody Awesome Thank you all for listening We're watching. We're both.

If you want to support the show, $2 a month, sardonicast.com, sign up for premium. You'll get these episodes early. Also, patreon.com slash sardonicast. Also, we got merch. Link in the description on the YouTube's. Thank you guys. Thanks. Everybody.

It's fun, as always. Yay. We talked about war. War bad. And Parasite Remake Bad. AI good? No, bad. Maybe.

AI bad. It's all bad. All right. Thanks, everybody. Bye-bye. Bye.