Sardonicast - Sardonicast #61: F for Fake (Feat. Matt Johnson)

Episode Date: June 1, 2020

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Three, two, one. Ah, the French champagne has always been celebrated for its excellence. There is a California champagne by Paul Masson, inspired by that same French excellence. It's fermented in the bottle in like the best French champagne. It's vintage dated. Hi, this is Sardonicast. I'm Adam from your movie sucks. I'm Ralph from Ralph, the movie maker.

Sorry, you cut off. You cut off for a second. Sorry. And we got a special guest here. How you doing? This is Matt Johnson. A huge fan of Paul Mason. And that was actually, believe it or not, my introduction to Orson Wells when I was a kid.

Not from that exact meme, but from Pinky and the Brain doing it on Animaniacs. And I remember seeing that as a kid. Oh, they did a parody? Well, it was literally my introduction to Orson Wells. And it was so profound to me because I thought, this is, there's something to this and I just couldn't explain it. It had this kind of numinal power and I was like, God, what is this? And then from then on, it's been a love affair ever since.

But of course, the brain is more or less a Norse and Wells caricature. So I should have known. That's great. So for anybody in the audience who's unfamiliar with your work, what would you say you do? I would say I'm a Toronto filmmaker who makes movies and TV shows that are, trying to make the audience guess what is real and what is fake and taking that to, well, I would say as far as we legally can in everything that we do. In the same vein as kind of Borat and Bruno in a way, not completely, but in the same vein in ways, where you get real people's reactions, but it's not necessarily just about the reaction, sometimes about like deciding where the point. goes based on where reality takes you sort of thing?

Yeah, we try to set movies or basically try to set stories in the real world, except not in a goofy way and not like in a pretentious way, like actually take the characters in your movie and have them go through the plot with real people who don't know they're in a movie around you. And for some reason, it leads to crazy results that as we're finding right now are often difficult to explain. So Nirvana, the band, the show is my favorite thing that you've made. I love it. It's very, very rare for me to actually be excited about seeing new episodes of a TV show. And I'm sure you've been asked this to death, but what is the situation on season three currently? Has anything changed? You know what? Weirdly, things, it's one of those slow-moving glaciers where it seems as though nothing is ever changing. Because for those who,

don't know, we had a show that was being made in Toronto by Vice Canada up until 2018 or maybe late 2017. Actually, I don't even know. And we had a deal to make three seasons of this show. And it seemed as though to us we were going to be making much more. And then out of nowhere, Vice Canada got shut down. Yeah. And so it was the strangest situation for us where it's not like our show had been taken off the air. It was like our network was taken off the year. And it was so strange because we had an unresolved contract. And so we were trying to figure out how to navigate that and whether or not we would move just to vice US, like the New York office. And the conversation to try to untangle all of the things that would happen has taken

forever. Yeah. And it's been a legal conversation with them. And there appears to be some light at the end of the tunnel. But in terms of getting the episodes that we've already made, Because we finished shooting a great deal of season three. And when we found out that we weren't coming back, we started going out and shooting on our own to finish season three, which we did with our team before it all kind of got disbanded. But the release plan for them is mired in this same legal back and forth with vice, which hasn't been like totally negative. It's not like these people are complete villains who are just holding it over us and being like you can never have it back. it's just that everybody who we worked with has been fired. Yeah.

Right? The entire office is gone. And so it's like we're trying to rebuild the bureaucracy in order for us to even ask the questions that we need. That's very bizarre. Of course. Well, it's like being in a Charlie Kaufman movie. But you, it's actually, it's a lot like the beginning of IHeart Huckabees with Jason Swordsman running through those hallways trying to get to that one office. That's very much what it feels like.

But I am still optimistic that, well, look, I know for a fact that the episodes that we shot are going to be seen. It's just when and how that I don't have a totally clear answer on. So everything's been shut then? Pretty much. Well, you know how we work. Yes, I'll say everything's been shot. Like, we have everything that we need to release season three. It's not all put together yet.

But in the process of releasing it, I'm sure we're going to want to change something or I'm going to see something. or I'm going to see something and be like, oh, we should reshoot this. But that's the kind of thing we be doing. Your character ages by five years. You know what? Even in the dirties, you'll, yeah, for some reason, people, I don't think they're watching it for the visual continuity of my haircuts. That's for sure.

But it will, hopefully, and like when I say, like, sometime soon, we'll be able to announce something. But again, it's a slow. moving glacier. Yeah. You know, as much as that sucks, I don't think people really realize just how awesome it was that you got greenlit for three seasons in the first place before even really doing, before even really having like a successful show on the network. We hadn't even released, we hadn't even released an episode. And we thought that our show was going to be like a total disaster because Weiss wasn't making anything like it. And we brought the first finished episode that

we had into their Toronto office to show Spike Jones, who was there basically judging all of the Canadian shows and being like, this sucks, this sucks, this sucks. And we were going there asking for, I think we needed like an extra $50,000 or something to finish season one. And we were so scared. And they said, well, you have to show an episode if you're going to ask for anything. And we showed this, this like half of that episode or maybe the whole episode. And we left with a contract for three seasons, which again, you're right. It's amazing. we were able to make that show in first place. That never happens.

Even just the way we were making the show generally in terms of what we were doing in terms of the law, I think should never have been. Well, I'm not going to say it should never have happened, but it's the type of thing that never ever happened. So I, it's the reason why I have such a, so many good things to say about Vice, really, because it's easy to think, oh, yeah, we got screwed and now nobody can see the third season and there's like this huge long waiting period because of it. But these are the same people who gave us the opportunity.

to make the show in the first place. So without them, we wouldn't have been able to do all that insane shit. So I can't separate them from that. Yeah, 100%. I've got a few more questions for you. I was wondering Alex or Ralph if you wanted to jump in or not. Yeah, Alex, you have one. Yeah, based on you already explaining how you love this kind of mix of the traditional

filmmaking with the documentary side, in the improv side of it, I'm really interested in how you built up that skill in in order to perform in these public places with this craziness going on around you. Does it just come to you naturally or is it just the events kind of dictate themselves? Or is it a skill you've built up over years? I'm curious. I bet you anybody who is put in these situations would probably say the same thing. And it's that, yes.

And I'm not trying to compare myself to other people who do this kind of thing. but much like someone like Eric Andre or Sasha Baron Cohen or anybody who has to perform in the real world, I think it actually makes it easier. I feel like when you're doing this, you feel like you're wearing a mask and you feel like you can say and do anything that you couldn't normally do because psychologically you have the excuse that you have to do it for the show. And that makes it so that your apprehension or your shyness. Because in reality, I'm fairly shy. And it's not like I love being in states of conflict with complete strangers.

And I don't like making people feel uncomfortable either. Like, it gives me a huge amount of anxiety. But because you're forced to do it because that's what your context is dictating, it actually makes it totally painless. Jay and I talk about this. Jay is the other guy in the show. Talk about it all the time where it's, if we're out in public and we have to do something, like we have to, let's say, sneak into a movie or something like that.

And we're not shooting the show. It's really anxiety provoking. And it's like, oh, God, no, we can't do it. Then we won't do it. Whereas if we were shooting the show and the episode was Matt and Jay sneak into a movie, we'd be like, yeah, no problem. And we'd do it like 10 times in a row. And we'd be like, did we get it?

And people would maybe come up to us and be like, are you sneaking into this movie? And we'd be able to talk with them easily. And it would be so easy because we would feel as though we had an excuse. And the step further is that oftentimes when we would do something really, really bad, like when we stole that exhibit from the museum and more or less got chased out by the police, we did stop and say, oh, we're doing this for a show. And then everybody was, at least in that one moment, everybody was cool with it. They were like, oh, okay. And so it's like we kind of knew in the back of our heads that once people knew that we were doing this for like an innocent enough comedy series, they'd be like, okay, no problem. Because at the end of the day, it's not like we were like, you know, throwing slime on people or pulling fake guns on people. And like we're not trying to, we're not trying to put people in a bad light or make them feel ugly or stupid. In fact, we're trying to get people to behave exactly the way that they would normally. I mean, not to tie it to the film that we're talking about today, F for fake, but very similar to the way that Orson Wells was trying to get people to behave in this film, especially with that lady watching sequence where it's like,

I mean, if you've made a movie before, you'll know one of the hardest things to do is to get human behavior right. It's why actors get paid millions and millions of dollars, right? Because human beings are all an expert at detecting real or fake human behavior. They're experts at it. Even when it's like subtle too, like that walking in Synecdochee, New York. You're not walking right. Amazing example. It's an amazing example.

And it's so deeply true because it's like we know when someone's not acting like a human being. And so the best way to make it so that people act like perfect humans is don't tell them they're acting, have them play themselves, right? Like, everybody in the world could win an Oscar at playing themselves if they didn't know that they were acting. Everybody could. Because it's a flawless performance. Who was the director that said anyone can act as long as they're given the right character? I don't remember who said that, but that's a quote that really resonated with me where it's like, if you can write someone to play essentially themselves and get them to act, how they would be acting anyway, then that, you know, that's something that can translate well to the

screen. And if someone's doing a poor performance, most of the time, it's because they're trying to act like someone they're not in a way. And it takes another second for them to come up with everything they're going to say. It's why really great actors are so amazing. Oh, yeah. They don't have to, that happens instantaneously. In fact, Orson Wells has that quote where he says, my best role is myself. And it's completely true. Like, he's so good at playing himself. In this movie, he's playing himself. That's why he was so good in radio. It's basically him talking into a mic playing himself.

It's why I never play somebody not named Matt Johnson, like acting like a crazy pitching idiot, right? It's like I'm always trying to be in a space where I'm totally comfortable and I'm going to know the answer is because it's just me. Yeah, that makes tons of sense. My favorite actors are definitely character actors, ones where it's like you're literally transforming your self. self in every role, like walking Phoenix or Tilda Swinton.

Those are some of the most impressive performances for me. I like, oh, who's the girl in Titanic? And then she plays the... Kate Winslet? Kate Winslet. I love Kate Winslet. Daniel DeLois, too. Yeah. It's like their magicians, eh? It's so funny.

Yeah. It's like, I think people have a real issue with the star system or feel like celebrities or celebrity actors are sort of ridiculous. But, like, the really great ones are, like, you... You do that. You go and be John C. Riley. Like, are you kidding me? They deserve all the credit they get.

These people are wizards. Mm-hmm. Yeah, 100%. Especially if you're working within limited talent pools trying to find people that can act and it's slim pickings sometimes. Well, welcome to the Canadian film world. And in many ways, like any country outside of Britain and the United States, it's one of the reasons that international film has such a struggle trying to break out. because we just don't have the same, we don't even have the same training system

for getting actors to that place. That's a whole other conversation. I think we should avoid it. Too dark, too dark. Ralph, did you have any questions for Matt before I asked? Yeah, I did. So Navrano the band the show is hilarious. But there's this whole like parody angle to it.

And I wanted to ask you about fair use. Because it's this gray line where you don't really know what's acceptable until you try it and like everyone discusses it. And Nirvana, the show has, like, these excellent, like, parody openings. Like, one of them was, like, Daredevil, the Netflix show. And it's really funny. And, like, what do you consider parody? And, like, how do you even come up with it, that stuff?

It was easy to come up with that stuff because when we first started making the show and when it was a web series before, like, when I just gotten out of film school, I had become so, like, sick of the idea that you couldn't do that stuff. Because in film school, if you've ever been, like, they'd just. drive into your head what you're not allowed to do. Specifically, you're not allowed to shoot without permits. You're not allowed to use any copywritten material, not allowed to use any copywritten music. Hide the logos on the water bottle. Oh, it's awful. And it's so limiting. Yeah, and make up fake companies for things like that. And you can understand from a legal point of view why they do that. But for me, as like, you could almost say like a stupidly rebellious, like 20-year-old, I was like, oh, I'm just going to make something that does the exact opposite of all the things that my stupid film professors told me to do

and do it for no other reason than that they said not to do it. And so that very much was the impetus for doing it, which led to making the dirties, which was sort of a celebration of that same type of ethos. And then when we started making Nirvana the band the television series, it was like, how can we use parity and use all this copywritten material to show what is going, on in the inner lives of these characters and show the things that they care about without them needing to talk about it. Like by having a Daredevil opening, well, community did this so well. I mean, I consider Dan Harmon to be like one of the masters of this. But by showing parody opening sequences or by having entire episodes that are based on,

say, Mrs. Doubtfire, you get, oh, these characters are obsessed with this stuff without them needing to say, I am obsessed with it, right? The way the Big Bang theory would just be like, oh, I love Mrs. Doubtfire. And they would play like the laugh track over that line. By thing. Right. Yeah. It's like the opposite of that where it feels lived in.

And it feels like these characters really are getting their cues from this North American supply of media. So that's where it came from. And luckily, our lawyers who we've been working with this stuff on from the very beginning, use that as the reason why we're allowed to do it because it's informing character and informing story and there is no other way for us to tell that exact story. And if there are any filmmakers listening, like that, more or less is the secret to fair use.

Don't quote me. It has to be justified. Yeah, it needs to be justified from the point of view of your story. So a great question to ask yourself is you're making a parody of, let's say the show lost. Could this be any show? like what specifically about lost is it that you're taking from this?

And if you have meaningful answers where it actually did need to be lost or it did need to be like the X-Men animated series or it did need to be this particular episode of Star Trek TNG, you can really get away with quite a bit. So long as you're not like just abusing and overstaying, you're welcome. But the laws are very, very sympathetic to artists, as they should be, as they should be. I remember a while ago you were telling me about the criterion posters

throughout the set on Nirvana the band the show and I think you said something along the lines of they just gave them to you and let you use them. They did.

It was ridiculous and I'll tell you exactly what happened. We were we had a bunch of sort of criterion poster ideas that we had I had a bunch of posters like that in the old web series

but they were just posters that I had. And then maybe it was Adam Belonger our art director or maybe one of the writers who had suggested that we just fill an entire wall with these posters. And it just so happened that someone at Vice knew the people who ran criterion. And so we got to send an email directly to them telling them what we were going to do, where we were like, okay, we have these characters who are more or less obsessed with this style of filmmaking along with movies from the 90s. And they were like, oh, okay, great.

And then all of a sudden we got this huge package of just everything. They sent us digital files of all those posters and then a whole bunch of full prints. And they were just like, yeah, go ahead and use them. And they sent us a signed contract that said we could use them in the show. And so that's one of the few times where we didn't have a fair use case. I mean, I'm sure we could have got one, but we didn't need it because we asked and they just said, no problem. Wow. That's awesome.

That is good, yeah. So you're filming a new movie. and I want to ask you a bit just tell us whatever you can tell us about the movie but also I want to know how is the pandemic affected your filming I think you said you're catching up on editing or something actually I was catching up on writing

because we had just finished the pilot to a new television series actually that I should well maybe I'll send it to you but I can't talk about it. It's still top secret but we'd just finished the pilot to a new series and we were about to go into pre-production at some level on it. It's a different kind of show. It's a game show that uses real people, but that's all I'm going to say about it.

And then the pandemic hit, and we were like, oh, my God, this is so bad. Like, we're completely fucked. But then everybody kind of got completely fucked. So it was like, okay, maybe this isn't such a problem. But the other thing we were about to start making was this other movie. And that's also about something top secret. Sure. Oh, man.

Again, I'll tell you guys once this is done. Because that's something that's like very legally. Oh, okay. Like dangerous. Like we can't, we can't, I can't tell anybody what it's about because the people who it's about would be like, yeah. Well, you'll love it. I'll tell you that much.

The other movie that we were just in Germany doing pre-production on was that was that movie about the time machines that the Nazis built that then the allies discover and try to use to send somebody back to. kill Hitler. That was like a big action movie that had been in pre-production on for like two and a half, three years. And we had just gotten back from Germany before I saw you actually at TIF. And that also is on hiatus until we figure out what the world is going to be like. The good news is that this type of, the type of shooting that we do with very small crews typically in the real world works quite well, even in this pandemic society.

But we're going to have to see. It's very unclear what people will and won't accept in terms of behavior in public. I know that there was a lot of pressure on us to try to shoot a COVID episode of Nirvana the band. There are lots of good ideas for how to do it. But there's something about going out and talking with people on camera where I just, I don't know if we can cross that line quite yet. Yeah. Yeah, we'll see, I guess.

Hopefully things get better sooner rather than later. Probably not going to be a TIF this year. Dude, I really hope there is. It'd be so sad if there's not. It's the best. I can wait another year. If it's not able to happen, then whatever. Yeah, it's true.

It means the movies will be way better, that's for sure. Yeah, if they have the same lineup and they just carry it over into the next year, just like everything's a 10 out of 10. That's what they'll have to do. Well, you know what? Not everything will be 10 out of 10. Yeah, I know. They're getting sloppy.

Some of the program is getting sloppy. I think that was it for questions. I've got like, unless you guys had more for Matt. No, I'm good. We have questions from Reddit too, but we're going to ask those at the end. Yeah, we got those later. I do have one final thing that one little question I have. Regarding your relationship with the way, with everything you've directed, you've also starred in it.

I'm just curious if that's something you have done out of necessity or you enjoy doing that or you prefer that over working with a specific actor or something like that. just curious what your motivation behind that choice is. Yeah, that comes from something we were talking about earlier, which is that when you're in Canada, it's actually really, really hard to find actors who are, actually, I don't want to target everybody with the same brush, because I'm sure there are actors that we could find if we looked hard enough. Yeah, it's more difficult to find them. Yeah, big time, like we don't have the same infrastructure of casting agents and people who know people. And it's not like we're living in New York where you just hear about great actors.

who are young and up and coming, like that infrastructure just doesn't exist. And if you want to sort of control your own production process, you want to more or less own your own camera and be able to control when you shoot. And for us, that meant that I would act in it because I was always there and I was always available. And so that made things so much easier. And it wasn't because I thought, oh, I'll be good at this. It's that, oh, I can write things that are based on my own personality.

and it'll just make things so much easier. When I was like 20 years old, I was much more interested in making Wes Anderson-style movies with like big huge productions and like I was a total dilettante. Like I was like a complete hack, right? I had just come out of film school and I had no idea what my voice was or what I wanted to do. And so this was almost like me biding my time and waiting until I could make something, quote unquote, real. And it just so happened that I enjoyed the process of doing it.

much and I was able to discover so much about filmmaking in this style by doing it this way almost as a joke to myself. I was like, oh, like, I'm just, who cares? I'm just doing this for me and my friends. Jay and I are just acting ridiculous in front of one another and we're cutting it together so that it makes some semblance of sense. I was never thinking I'm making a movie or I'm making a TV show. Like, I never thought that. I thought this is, this is more or less me wasting my time. But then it evolved like all things. I mean, I think, you You guys, I don't know your specific work, but certainly Adam, I imagine that your story is vaguely similar, where you begin doing something as not so serious. And you're like, okay, I'm just going to see what happens.

And I'm going to see where it takes me. And then what's amazing is that as soon as a process gets instantiated in what you're doing, that process will take you to insane places. And it's almost like you're not in control of it, which is, which is again, like, such a magical feeling that I would say every major successful YouTuber because I see this happen all the time with YouTube or podcaster, they go through the same process. You look at their early stuff, you look at like Pouti Pai's early videos and you're like, what? How does this guy become who he is? And it's just by doing it over and over and over again. And then the process becomes like a self-fulfilling prophecy. As long as your own toughest critic, as long as you're

looking for things to improve every time. That is the thing that most people lack and why most people are like, oh, it's good enough. I'll put this shit out and they never improve. You're 100% right. You're 100% right. You're right about it coming from some like creative place or something that you enjoy doing at first.

And we've all used copyright material too in our work. Because we felt like we were making something new and like something creative with this copyrighted work. So it is kind of similar to what you were saying. I completely agree. And I would argue that taking it a step further, the use of copywritten material has such a, it's almost seen one as like a bratty or, oh, you're doing something illegal type thing. Or two, it's seen as lazy. I think that this is, it is so the opposite.

And I'm going to like pull from that horrible movie finding Forrester. No, what was it? You're the man now dog. Is that it? What's the man now dog is on website, isn't it? Unless that's also. No, you're the man now dog. You're the man now dog comes from the Sean Connery quote from that movie where he's trying

to teach that inner city black kid how to write. Oh, okay. I'm not aware of it. I think it's finding Forrester. But he more or less suggests that this guy steal a passage from his book as the opening paragraph of something that he's going to write. And the student does this and gets in all this trouble, et cetera, et cetera. And this movie is not a good movie.

But the point it's making is so true that theft early in your, career and stealing from other people and using it as a jumping off point for your own work is the way everybody should be working when they're trying to figure out who they are. It's so useful and it's like a teaching tool. Like you should be actively doing it because whether you want to or not, you are doing it, except you're doing it without stealing the copyrighted material. You're pretending to be somebody you admire. You're wishing that you were a filmmaker, you're not.

You're trying to secretly steal moves from other people. And what's so crazy is that you look at the filmmakers who have made massive careers in North America in the last 20 years. And they're people who do it openly. Like Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson are open about their theft. They're not trying to hide it. In fact, it becomes a part of their voice. And it's the way that everybody should be doing this because we have a shared history of cinema, that everybody should be constantly mining. because there's no way that because you stole 55 shots from, you know, brief encounter that,

oh, you're just ripping off David Lean. Why do we need you? We've got David Lean. You're not telling that story. You're telling your own story using the tools that you really appreciated from that movie. Yeah, 100%. With my channel, the first videos on my entire channel were very, like, I even said it in my first video.

I'm like, yeah, I'm ripping off red letter media. and the format was way too similar, but I needed that to be able to figure out my own voice, to be able to start something. Yes. And it gives you the confidence to try. Like, there's such a, especially with kids in North America, there is like a painful oppression of,

okay, I do not want to be seen as uncool, making a mistake, trying too hard. Like, these emotions are so powerful on young people. that they just do not try because the last thing they want to get is cast out of the group or be told on the internet you're a loser or or nowadays like be canceled for for having the wrong opinion on something right yeah and these are totally totally oppressive anti-artistic ideas whereas if you can find some some bedrock like oh well i'll just rip off red letter media red letter media people like red letter media i like red letter media i'll just do something that's kind of like a fan service to that You do it and then you realize, wait a minute, this has basically given me the confidence to try to do things on my own. That to me is an unbelievable success story that I wish more people would know. And there's an audience for it too. Huge.

Huge. Look, everybody is pretending. Everybody's pretending. The guys on red letter media are pretending, right? And everybody feels this type of imposter syndrome all the time. And it's kind of a part of our shared humanity, right? Like, it's one of the reasons the talented Mr. Ripley is so fucking good. We all feel like that we aren't who we pretend to be.

And that actually is a way that you can have confidence by admitting it. Because then it means you can go out and try anything so long as you're willing to wear that. Which, again, it really is a perfect segue into this film because that is what F for Fake is completely and totally about. Yeah. About pretending to be something that you're not and where that actually. actually takes you. When we had David Sandberg on the podcast, he was definitely talking about imposter syndrome too. It's like, dude, you just, you've had hits. You know, you, like, you're a very successful filmmaker, right? But he still felt it's, it's really weird when you look at just like

the level of self-criticism that, that people have in general. Like, everybody's really unconfident in ways despite their successes. But that's in a way almost a good thing, kind of. You don't want to be so overconfident, right? You don't want to be the opposite end of that where you think you're the best and then you never improve and then you're always going to be shit. Well, you hit the, you already said the brilliant thing about your own work, which is that you can try as much as you want, but if you aren't unbelievably critical of yourself, you never are going to improve. And I would say that imposter syndrome has been falsely labeled. and it is a feature, not a bug of human psychology.

It's actually amazing because if we didn't have it, we would all wind up with this Dunning Kruger effect about our own lives all the time where we think we're so great. And we would never, look, no matter who you are, like, there's a reason that Martin Scorsese's movies have fallen off so much. There's a reason why Christopher Nolan's movies have, like, they've taken a nose dive because they're at a point where nobody's judging them in their own circle of friends, nobody's telling them that this isn't good enough, this isn't up to your standard, and they themselves are not self-critical, right?

So you wind up having this huge separation between the quality of a lot of filmmakers or a lot of artists' early work and their later work because they stop this reflexive process of feeling like, oh, I'm not who I say I am, because you should always feel like you can be better, no matter who you are. And that's why it's so good that that guest was thinking, oh, Yeah, I still feel this way because that's what's driving him to do better work. It doesn't matter how good you are. You could literally be the best filmmaker in the world right now.

And if you didn't think you could get better, it would more or less be your death. Because then what are you still doing on this planet? You've already done it. Just leave. Very well said. And I think that is a pretty good segue into the film discussion. So usually how we start the film discussion is the person that recommended it gives a little blurb just says what the movie is.

And then I guess we just started back and forth discussion. Did you want to introduce the movie, Matt? I'd be happy to, yeah. So, every fake... And we say spoilers, too. Spoilers. I guess everybody. Spoiler discussion.

I guess there's spoilers for this film. Look, if you can make it all the way through it, I'll say up front, this film is fairly boring if you're not watching it from the point of view of, wow, this was groundbreaking for 1974. Okay. But it's a documentary kind of made by Orson Wells about forgeries. And so that is the sort of in a nutshell description of what the film is. Orson Wells follows the story of this one art forger living in the island of Abitha named Elmere Del Hori,

whose his name is not important. But at the time in the 70s, this guy was renowned as the world's most famous art forger. And he could forge anything, like anything. Picasso's, like he was forging shit all the time and illegally selling it to major dealers and making, well, the film is spotty on this because they didn't want to get sued, but this is basically how he was living this gangster lifestyle on this island with his little gay boyfriend, of which he had all these little gay servants. This guy was a pimp, like this guy was crazy.

He's about, I don't know, 60 years old living the life. He went to jail, by the way. The film doesn't get into this, but he went to jail in Spain for two months for being gay. Oh, really? That was the charge. Two months for homosexuality. But he's an unbelievable talent. And his biography at the same time is being written by a guy Clifford Irving, who's an American writer who a lot of people may not know. But he was extremely famous also in the 1970s for faking a biography about Howard Hughes. And all this is happening by accident.

So while you're watching the film, you're learning that it just so happens that you're watching a documentary about this art forger who at the same time is having his biography written about him. by somebody who forged a biography. And it was not meant to be this way. And then the film kind of travels away from that and becomes a self-indulgent nightmare where Orson Welles talks about how great he is. That's kind of meta, yeah. Yes. It is a hugely, it's a totally sincere look at people who fake things, people who copy things, and what is the true meaning of art. And if you had to, if you had to say what the thesis of this was, it seems like it's something around the lines of what makes something art. And this is something that Orson Welles obviously was very interested in personally, but he tries to explore it through other con artists in this film. Yeah, it's more like an essay

style documentary in ways where it's like about his thoughts on the subject rather than just telling a straightforward like fact-based timeline of events. It's more. about the ideas behind the events themselves. And it's very thought-provoking. Yeah. And I would say way ahead of its time, too, in terms of what it's saying about copying and in terms of the construction of the film, which is why for me, it was such a, I mean, this to me is like, I would say one of three of the biggest touchstone movies I ever saw

in my life. I saw it right before I started making Nirvana the band, the web series. and I couldn't believe that somebody had done this so long ago and that I had never seen anybody do it since. Like this kind of totally illegal shooting, all real people but also like totally fake people saying they're real and really clumsy like reenactments, but combined with completely real footage that seemed like mistakes. I like I couldn't believe how it was constructed. And you watch it now and you think, okay, well, Orson Well, Orwell's, a bum, he has no money, he's a liar, and this stuff is just him struggling through completing

the movie. Like he's desperately trying to just finish the movie. And so all of these mistakes are there because he can't do any better. That is one way of viewing it. But when I was young, I was watching it like, this guy is a genius. This is crazy. I can't believe he's just, you know, shooting on the streets with real people and nobody cares. Or that he's having his girlfriend walk down the street and have people look at her. And like, he's turning that into a plot. Like, how do you do this? Not realizing that's like, oh, this guy was so hard up for money that he was willing to do literally anything. Well, yeah, there's a bit of both in there for sure. You know, like he, he is kind of unintentionally comical at many points throughout this film, just the way he presents himself

too. And he's so extravagant. Oh, yeah. Well, he's old vaudeville. And he's so funny. He's like, what's crazy, though, it's almost like the room. him. In many ways, he's got a bit of a Tommy Wazzo character to him because when he's trying to be funny, it comes off as quite corny. And you're like, what? Like when he shrinks his girlfriend in the suitcase and he's like, hey, hey, now she'll fit on the plane. And you're like, you're pathetic. Like, you're an old man shrinking your 24 year old girlfriend trying to act like you're so cool. Like, it's pathetic. But then at the same time, he'll do other conversational things that are hilarious. Like, you can't believe he's saying it. He's so charming.

again, I don't know how much of it he was in control of. Yeah. Yeah, some of it might just be kind of like serenipitous. The editing of the film, too. The editing is crazy. Yeah, like you were saying. And I also see how it kind of influenced other things like Red Letter Media, that kind of like the Plinker reviews, the personality like taking over.

And then there's like this fact-based stuff. I don't know. I see how it influenced a lot of stuff. But yeah, the editing's fucking nuts. And it's, I've heard so many stories. I've heard so many stories about the editing in this film. Again, if you're listening to this and you haven't seen the film, it is worth watching for not. You could watch it with the volume off just to see how they're editing this movie because it's coming from a time of optical printing.

And so if you don't know what that means, it's like there are no digital effects. You can't put text on screen without going through a two-stage process of reprinting your negative with the text on it. Like nothing could be done easily. this movie has what would you guys say like it seems like 500 freeze frames yeah a lot of free yeah it's almost like ADHD in a way it's it's absolutely insane not just for a film from the 70s but like especially a documentary from the 70s to be edited in this way most documentaries that I've seen especially older ones are like very much more like mature and like slow methodical sort of thing and this one just seems like really all over

the place, but it fits it so well. Well, because it's about the construction of art. I've heard stories that Orson Wells had six editors working at the same time in the same room on six different Steenbecks, and he would just walk between them, sort of barking commands at all of them. But again, that's one of these stories that, you know, maybe Orson Wells tried to spread that story. I've also heard a story that he traveled constantly with his own Steenbeck. And if you don't know what that is, like these machines, which you see constantly in the movie, they show you the editing process in this movie all the time.

So if you want to see how they edit movies in the 70s, this is a great way to see it. That he would carry one with him wherever he went as he traveled between his house in France to Abitha, to Italy. Like this is absurd. Nobody could do this. To travel with one of these things is like driving an elephant around with you. But there's a lot of like rumors and legends around the construction of this movie. I think there's two credited editors. but what I've heard is that it was mostly Orson just barking commands at interns.

That's great. So none of us had seen this before, right? Except for you, Matt, right? No. No. I'm curious. Did anybody expect the bullshit at the end reveal? Because that was in the back of my mind the whole time.

I was like, he's going to pull some trickery on me because he said that he wouldn't. I was like, you cheeky bastard. You're ahead of the cove. Yeah, taking note of like, for the next hour, everything I say is true. I'm like, I almost thought that the whole thing would have been faked. I was actually watching the movie thinking, like, if these are all actors and this didn't actually happen, because I wasn't even familiar with the actual story of this forger. I was thinking like, man, if these were actually actors, that would be an insane movie because everything's so natural.

I had it spoiled for me before, so I wasn't tricked by it, but I don't know. He's using the editing too to trick you at the end. Like there's freeze frames and stuff on people's faces to make them look guilty or whatever. It's creative how he used it, but I saw it coming. Creating art is a lie in of itself. And I think that was said at the beginning of the film is that like artists are forger's in any sense. He's using the medium to trick the audience, yeah, which is very cool. well yeah

I thought it was so wacky to get to that point that I didn't see it coming I was just kind of with it just waiting for the for it to do what it was gonna do like we already said how it was awesome well as it held the whole thing together for me and this like overall vague thesis that was kind of carrying everything

particularly like the whole if there weren't any art experts would there be any fakers kind of questions that it brings up. Yeah, these kind of circular ideas. And yeah, these stories are so seemingly random at first, but they do all have that through line despite how scattershot some of the presentation is. But I kind of disagree with Matt saying it's kind of boring at this point in time,

because for me, that wackiness made it so unique. And the presentation of it was so unlike anything I'd seen before. I was entertained throughout, especially by the time you do get to the whole like Picasso and the fake story stuff. I found it really entertaining. I'm actually so happy to hear that because, I mean, I say that in almost a self-effacing way because I clearly adore this movie so much. When I watch it now, I think of other people watching it being like, this filmmaker is so full of himself. I can't believe, like it's the most self-indulgent. For those of you who haven't seen it, most of the movie is he.

him talking about how hot his 24-year-old girlfriend is. And I'm not exaggerating. Like, a good, like, he makes plot points out of how hot his girlfriend is. He has his girlfriend walk around in Rome, I think, and just films guys' reaction to her. That's a great sequence. It's so weird. What's amazing. It's the opening credits.

And you're like, this, of course, he doesn't say this is my girlfriend. And so if you know that, then you're just. just like, oh my God, these guys, his ego is so deluded. His wife is at home in Los Angeles at the time that they're shooting this and he's just gallivanting around. He's got a 24-year-old Croatian girlfriend. And he's like, why don't we make a movie where it's about how hot my mistress is? That's the whole plot. And then we'll find all this other stuff about art along the way. So that's why I say, I hope it's not too boring. But I was happy to hear that. If you are caught up in the story he's telling that I can imagine you're like, holy shit, this lady like raped Picasso and stole all of his paintings. That's insane. What a crazy story. And it really is. You know what? Let me ask Adam a question because it's something that I imagine you don't get asked often and it's so related to the content of this film. And it's this. This movie is about the art criticism world and how it, one, creates

markets and two allows for a certain, we'll call it the pretentious class to rise to the status of elite, right? Where if you say, oh, this modularity, what's the painter's name? Well, I'll just say this Picasso. This Picasso is, this is sophisticated. I recognize this as a true Picasso. That puts me in the upper class, just my taste of recognizing it. Do you feel that because you have such specific.

taste and your tastes seem to carry such weight with such a huge amount of people worldwide that you can recognize how you have a cultural shaping force just through criticism? Well, yeah, 100%. I mean, if I, the way that I rate my movies, like, it's very infrequent that I'll give something a 10 out of 10 rating. And so whenever I give something that high of a rating, people are freaking out. People go on my subreddit and be like, oh my God, we got another one, like, which the last one I gave was for The Lighthouse. And I absolutely loved that movie.

I remember. I remember seeing you after you saw it. And do you think that you're, because I agree with this type of rating system, I actually think that ratings are ridiculous at the moment because everybody's like, with video games with everything. It's like everything has to be a nine. It's like the numbers below seven. The numbers below seven don't even exist.

It's completely absurd. But are you feeling that your severity is helping to curb that in other people and that other people are becoming, I don't want to say more cynical because I don't actually view it as cynicism, but that people are becoming more grounded in terms of their film criticism because they're following you and listening to the way that you critique things? I've heard that before. I mean, I've heard people saying like that after watching my reviews or being a fan of my material for a while that they look at movies and. a more critical way because of it. But I've always held the perspective that it's okay to like something even if you're critical of it. Like there's movies that I'll watch like every year because I love them so much and I love

the experience. But at the same time, I'm able to be like, okay, well, this is kind of stupid about it. I don't like this about it. This was done kind of sloppily, but still enjoy it. And even if I give it like what, a six out of ten or something, that doesn't mean that, you know, the experience that you get from it personally, that is not. not something that is really taken away by doing that. And at the end of the day, I mean, like, I don't really think that my criticisms should dictate what people should be able to enjoy

or what people should feel comfortable in enjoying. Because realistically, it's, you know, the people that should take my criticisms the most seriously are people that, you know, their opinions are already more or less aligned with mine. So if people look at a critic, as a sort of barometer or be like, okay, well, I agree with 90% of what he says. So if he says a movie is good or bad, then I'm probably going to feel that way. That makes sense. As long as it's not treated as like this objective standard. As long as it's not treated that way, I think it's fine.

And yeah, so I do have that kind of influence in a way. But at the same time, the type of media that I'm creating, there's a good amount of people that are watching me not necessarily for the opinions that I have on a film, but the way that it's presented. So like these larger projects where I'm like dissecting a movie and, you know, comedically tearing it apart, there's things going into that. Yeah, but don't don't, don't sell yourself short. Look, criticism is, I actually think it's a broad category. And even just your meta analysis of work still imparts on the audience, like John Berger, like it's a way of seeing work. It's a way of seeing art. And so even if you may think, oh, people are just watching

this because they think I'm funny or because we have a rapport. Depends on a person. Audience and artist. There's a bit of breath. Yeah, but they're still absorbing, again, that way of seeing and way of ingesting art. I bring it up not because I'm, I mean, obviously your taste is important, but I bring it up because I feel like in film criticism, very much like an art criticism. There is a role that seems to have been almost forgotten or relegated to very few critics. And that is that to say, okay, this filmmaker is lying. Like this filmmaker, this movie is fake.

You do not need to waste your time with this because this is like a bullshit pretentious moron who's trying to fool audiences. And I have seen through it. And I'm letting you know that I've seen. seen through it. And I see you do that all the time in many of your film criticisms, even if you're not saying those exact words. And I actually see that as a very important service. And it's something that most legacy media critics just can't do because of their relationships or because of the standards that they are forced to uphold or because they just don't have the taste. But to me,

F for Fake got it that idea in a way that I thought was so interesting because it basically says to the film, to the critics, to all art critics, your job is to spot the forgeries. Your job is to tell me when something is authentic or it's not. And as soon as you can't do that anymore, and as as soon as the artist can fool you, you are irrelevant. Like the art has moved past you. In a way, yeah, but there's also the like philosophical elements that it brought up, like when they say, who's the expert and who's the faker when referring to someone who makes a forgery that fools an expert, right? And I think in a way it's also trying to communicate that like regardless of how well you can spot a fake like everybody in their own profession, whether or not you're a

critic or like an art critic or a film critic, in a way we're all kind of faking. In a way, we're all kind of just, you know, doing doing what we think is appropriate. And no one's really truly an expert. You accepted your own taste. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, some people have more expertise than others. It's not like everybody's the exact same. But I think that to some degree, like anyone can be fooled. Anybody can be incorrect about their perspectives or about how they view things. There are sometimes where, you know, there will be details about an artist's intent that might not be clear to people when they view a film.

So a lot of people came out saying under the Silver Lake was a sexist movie, which, I completely disagree with because I watching the film, it's pretty clear to me that it's a commentary on sexism. So even though it shows, I didn't find it sexist either. Yeah. It's it's very clearly pointing out sexism within Hollywood because it is a commentary. It is a criticism of these things. So that doesn't necessarily invalidate someone's experience, but I do think that the artist's intent is also, you know, it should be considered more importantly. I have a take on a under the Silver Lake and I think it's a filmmaking lesson. And that's if you've seen this movie, it is a, it's the It Follows Guys follow up and it was making it for years than Andrew Garfield.

An unbelievable performance by Andrew Garfield. As a friend of mine said, he does not give up on the performance even though he probably should midway through the movie. But I think that the movie is extremely fascinating, but plotting, and it gets kind of lost in itself. This is just my opinion. This is my experience watching it. And then reading about it afterwards, I think I know why. And it's because the director decided that he was going to encode an entire mystery in the movie, which is a brilliant idea.

Like he has all of these codes and secrets that slowly reveal themselves and actually form in this massive huge conspiracy. It's actually a bit like the old Graham-based book, the 11th hour, which is a children's book that has a hidden mystery throughout it, if you know where to look. Yeah, we've talked about a few times on the podcast. We all love it. I'm sure you have.

But I will tell you from a filmmaker's point of view on this, on doing this as an idea, I think that it wound up limiting his ability to edit his own film so severely that it made the pacing difficult. for broad audiences. For broad audiences, sure. Yes, yes. Now, look, I'm not trying to, like, I know people who love the movie.

I found the movie quite enjoyable until that scene with the old guy singing the Nirvana songs. And I was like, I just can't take this. But I did, but I did think the movie was extremely interesting. And I thought, oh my gosh, I think this guy in the editing room kind of got stuck because he needed to have all of these scenes in this order for the mystery that you. for the mystery that he had encoded, he can't cut it out. And everything that I've ever made has been re-edited like crazy and was never our original intention, right?

I would say that's the only reason that the stuff that I've made is even slightly watchable is because we've completely torn it apart and put it back together. And not having that tool as a filmmaker, I think can hurt you when it comes to getting, again, broad audiences to follow your stories. That said, I love lots about the movie. So I'm not trying to trash it. I just thought I would include that. It's a very interesting perspective on it.

I haven't heard that criticism. Coming back to F for Fake, have any of you seen, I got vibes from a couple other movies while watching it. There's a 2014, I believe, documentary called Art and Craft. It's also about a forger. It's not nearly as like meta. It's not like an essay-style documentary. It's like a literal documentary. Yeah, but it followed him.

And he was such a weird, interesting character. I think he might have been like autistic or something, but yeah, that, that was, that was definitely a fun watch. And it was really, really funny. And just watching, there's this B plot going on where there's a guy that's like trying to pin him, just being like, I'm trying to get this guy thrown in jail. And his entire life is just revolving around this art forger. And he's a total loser. Oh, yeah. Like, and he winds up, like, destroying his own family, basically. It's just like, oh, it's so crazy. And then there's another documentary called My Kid Could Paint That. And part of the reason why it reminded me of that is because that's also a documentary where it is very critical of what dictates as art. And I feel like in F for Fake, one of the biggest reasons why I enjoy it is not just the presentation. It's not just it being ahead of its time and the crazy editing.

It's the philosophical elements, really. Like that that can elevate my perspective of a movie is being able to Think of things in a different way because of the film there are very few films that do that and I think this one did it well There's this documentary the imposter have you seen that I don't it's a masterpiece I don't remember it was great but it has kind of like a fake out ending element like like F for fake and it reminded me of that too I I heard they stole it from F for fake so I yeah Adam if you you got to see this this movie. It's basically about like it's about a guy who pretends to be the long lost son

of an American family and they buy it. And they raise him. He's like he's like a French kid like a runaway and he pretends to be their kid and he moves in with them and lives with them for like a decade. And they raise him. And it's a documentary about the crazy fallout that happens because of it. It is extremely extremely well made beyond being. a great story. It's extremely well made. Yeah. Well, I'm not going to spoil anything because I want to have it to see it. But yeah, there's definitely a lot in common with that. Ralph or Alex, did you have any more to say about for fake?

We've pretty much covered most of it, I think. But yeah, I found it really thought-provoking. And just the, we really mentioned how Orwell has this pretty funny, just cadence about him, just his screen presence has a humor to it. But I was cracking. up every different situation that he was finding himself in as he was introducing a new segment. Like, for example, there's that one point where he just straight up interrupts the movie just to like order a steak or like drinks a song. It's one of the best. You can tell it's not the first time those words came out of his mouth.

It's so funny. Apparently they ate at that restaurant all the time, him into the cinematographer. And I love that the waiter comes over and his line is, you take these away, please. It's a stack of muscles. Like a three foot high stack of muscles. He's like, take these away, please, and bring the steak. And it's like a couple of stakes in order. Then he spills a glass of red wine and instantly transitions into spilled wine a bit behind the ear.

For luck, he takes the wine and rubs it behind the ears of the people beside him and doesn't say anything about it. And then he just keeps telling the story. He's crazy. That's why I wasn't question anything. I was just letting it happen in front of my eyes. I'll say one last thing about the film, which isn't obvious when you're first watching it, but I think actually adds to the experience quite a bit. And especially if you're a Herzog fan.

And that's that this film actually came together in the same way that Grizzly Man did, which is that it was a documentary that already existed about Elmere Delori, the film forger that was then brought to Orson for advice. And rather than give advice on how to finish the movie, he said, just give it to me and I'll finish it. And so a lot of the footage of Elmere, of Clifford Irving, like a lot of the early interviews, that's all from a completely, you could say, different film that Orson goes in and then basically inserts himself into. And getting back to the conversation we were having earlier about like starting somewhere that's somebody else's work and then figuring out how to make it your own. I think this movie is an unbelievably good example of that. Because he took somebody else's documentary and was like, okay, how can I make this an Orson

Wells film? And so I wonder if that's what leads to all the crazy editing, all of the inserts of him doing magic tricks, him talking directed at camera, wall-to-wall voiceover, him putting his girlfriend in before this stuff. Like, why does he do this? If not for a sense of true imposter syndrome and him feeling like, well, I've got this other person's movie, I need to make it my movie. And so it leads to all these bizarre offshoots that if you're not.

you were to pitch on their own, you'd be like, what sounds ridiculous? Don't do that. But because he felt like he had to, it creates this bizarre and insane piece of art. Yeah, the task of structuring the film alone is really impressive, let alone the editing. So bizarre. Ralph, did you have any more to add on this movie? No, I'm just stunned by it. Yeah, I like it a lot, definitely. The indulgent factor, I guess I could understand that, but he had so much personality to the thing. He basically makes the movie.

Yeah. Oh, I say it's a good thing. It's a good thing. The indulgence is good. I'm not trying to say it's bad. It's just that if you hate Orson Wells, this will be your least favorite movie. Yeah. He's always been indulgent. I mean, he's like, he's in Citizen Kane. He plays the main character. He's like this

billionaire, handsome ladies man, whatever. So I'm used to his shit like that. You're used to Orson Wells' shit. It doesn't fool you anymore. I don't know, maybe it's just I don't, it's after that wine commercial or whatever that was. Like, I just couldn't take them seriously anymore. It's so funny.

The fur and chaperre, or whatever the fuck. Like, that was just. Oh, that's so good. Paul Masson. Paul Masson. Imagine being hired to do a commercial and showing up shit-faced. Well, imagine, imagine being the actor who gets to sit next to Orson Wells and watch him do this and be like, oh, my God. Isn't he going to say?

say something? When Orson looks at the actor right beside him. Yeah, I'll give one more quote. And this is one of my favorite Orson Welles quotes before we move on. And that's that Orson Wells was famous for saying if he was ever in an interview, and it's so true for this movie, he'd often do interviews by phone because he would say, if I can see the person's face, I'm too tempted to lie in order to please them. And that to me sums up so much of what's happening in this movie.

Like he's lying because he wants the audience to love him. Everything he says he says with such style because he wants the audience to love him. This is a guy who's so late in his career, so desperate to try to find money. He's basically seen as a has-been by most people and he just wants so badly to be, well, liked in a way. And it's just dripping in every frame, this kind of like me, like me, like me. And I mean, I mean, artists generally are no different, but that quote sums this guy up, I think, so well. And that's that he truly is an artist and he has, he has truth to tell. But if that truth is competing with his feeling that you will either like him or dislike him based on what he says, then his ego will win.

Which, yeah, sad. Perfectly put. Thank you for, thank you for recommending it. I'm stoked that you guys hadn't seen it. Yeah, I was. There's so much on my watch list. There's so many things. I need to see still.

And yeah, this was one of them. Yeah, I really loved the, like, before the Picasso section, there was like this kind of like ending speech, even though it wasn't the end of the movie yet. And I thought that the presentation there was really well done where the music cuts out. And because of the editing and how fast-paced and loud and quirky everything was before that point, everything just slows down to a stop. Music cuts out and we hear him, you know, delivering his speech. And I thought that that was really, it really like drove home the importance of like the philosophical elements of the movie, which I really enjoy.

Yeah, it's beautiful. And a coda, a coda is that the star of the film, Elmere Delori, committed suicide two years after this movie came out. Nothing to do with the film, but because the Spanish government finally agreed to extradit him to France to go to jail for all of this forging nonsense. Oh, God. I thought he'd rather die. Yeah. Crazy. So usually what we do at the end of a movie discussion, we give a rating out of 10.

You don't have to if you don't want to. But I'm giving this one an 8 out of 10. What about you guys? Jesus. I'm right there with you. 8 out of 10. I'd say 7 out of 10. I mean, yeah, I mean, this movie is like the H index on this film for my work is like unbelievable.

I have to give it a 10. No shame is that. enjoy it that much, but I've stolen so much from it. Like half of Operation Avalanche is stolen directly from this movie. The whole reason that we edit on Steenbex and show them is because of this movie. So I rate it highly, but it has nothing to do with the quality of the movie in my opinion. Thank you so much for recommending it. That was a good discussion.

And it's always great to hear someone talk about something that they're really passionate about, too. I figured it would be good to give you the recommendation just because I know that you've got a to say about a few different movies. Like so much of your work is just a love letter to other movies, right? Yeah, it's a few movies I can talk about a lot. And then the breadth of my knowledge is basically nothing. Like outside of those few films that I reference all the time, I'm a complete moron. So you got me on the right title.

Good, good. All right. Time for questions. Yeah. Yeah, let's do some questions from the Sardonicas community. If you want to leave your own questions for us to answer in the future, head over to the Sard on a cast subreddit where there will be a suggestion thread where you can ask whatever you like let's start with this one then from furry and zero who says what is one film you feel

defines the 2010's culture the best so I guess the last 10 years what is the film that kind of defines I don't know if they mean like film culture or culture as a whole but there is definitely a lot of overlap with that I think the Marvel films like in terms of of what's actually had the biggest impact on culture? Yeah, I guess so. I think those. I guess that's not a bad answer. I think those have made the most money.

What merchandising they've made the most? Yeah. Which one? Which one? The Avengers Endgame? Yeah, one of those. What, do I say the best one? I mean, I came out of the most money.

Just one you feel... That's kind of the end of an era, wasn't it? You know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I guess you could say that. I guess it built up to that one. Immediately coming to my mind, it's a weird answer, but I was thinking drive.

Even though that's like very, 80s but I mean there was a huge resurgence of of like throwback 80s stuff from drive suddenly everybody was doing 80s throwback which is kind of funny

that that in a way defined a decade as just being from a previous decade and I would also say the cynicism of that film and the totally silent protagonist like I agree that film was it was more of a movement

it was very much in my opinion was a lot like the fight club of its era with people really like I mean that that became an instant Halloween costume people identified with the character it had something to it that that that later was kind of redone in Mad Max and and other films that were sort of similar but I think that's a great pick more people at least in my circle would be talking about that movie or giving references to that movie than I would say most films from the last 10 years yeah yeah I would say so I've seen a lot of people in a scorpion jackets walking around, especially in film school.

They have that same driver jacket that he had. My initial answer was Avengers End Game, because I feel like that. Yeah, I feel like it just kind of summarizes that whole, like, superhero subgenre, you know, movement that really grew, I guess, since, like, 2008. But it really did kind of flourish during 2010 to, and then culminating with that movie last year. year so and if I wanted to be extra cynical I'd say something like ready player one almost for similar reasons as um drive but I actually like yeah in a way like ready player one but ready player one wasn't a movement at all like it kind of came and went it was no yeah but it was like it was like an imitation of that though it was like it was like the the culmination of that

movement expressed in Ready Player 1. As far as defining, yeah, like, fan culture of the time, it kind of summarizes that, that a movie like that could come out and be assumed to be like a good idea. Everything is just a reference, like, I love that character, I love that character, I love that character, hey, they're all in the same movie. Does it matter? No? Yeah, right.

Well, I mean, that's, in many ways you're summing up many of the Marvel movies, too. But, yeah, if only more people had. That movie just kind of came and went. Poor Spielberg, I. He got killed on that one. Now he's making movies for Apple. It's funny, if you're going to say that, then you may as well be saying Joker, right?

Because that seems like... I feel like Joker is almost 2020, though. It's like the start of it, though. It's like the tail end. It's not really defining the decade. It's kind of like a new thing. I don't think people will be talking about Joker in, you know, five years outside of like as a meme joke, though, in a way that they, I think

we'll still be talking about Drive. I think that Drive is going to be a classic where people will be talking about it in 10 or 20 years. Yeah. Well, you can never really know. Like, I mean, a classic is you almost need to be 10 years away before you. We're nine years away. It came out in like 21. Yeah.

Yeah. So we're close. Yeah. In the horror genre, there's been like a resurgence of like quality horror movies too. The witch and hereditary. A lot of A24 stuff. But yeah, it's been like a return to more intelligent, less jump scary kind of horror movies. Yeah.

That's great. Yeah. It's good that there's like a market for that right now. It's good that there's enough people that are like actively interested in that sort of thing. The poultry king has one for us who says, which country of the three, well, I guess four of us guys live in has the most accurate age rating system in your opinion, including. Quebec's rating system, too, if you're familiar with it. I'm not familiar with it, so you guys will have to help me with that bit. So, well, I've got three countries here.

We've got Canada, America, and the UK, who has the most accurate age rating system. I mean, I would probably have to say Canada. We're a lot more relaxed and lenient than the NBA. What is Canada's rating system? Because I don't know. It's, okay, so it goes GPG 14A, 18A. R. And so the Canadian R rating is the equivalency of the American NC17 rating. So 18A, you could, you know, you could be a kid showing up with your parent and it's fine. R, if you want to see an R rated movie

in Canada, you have to have like your own ID. But the way that things get rated is like a lot of movies that are the United States R rating will usually get like a 14A rating in Canada. And in cases even depending on depending on how stupid the MPA is there there's been our rated movies in the States that got a PG rating in Canada a single man is an example of that where it's just like oh no he's gay it's rated R like whereas Canada it's like it doesn't matter like there's like one shot of like a nude photo or something and that was it and all of a sudden gets slapped with an R rating in the States I want to bring up Operation Avalanche got an R rating in the States for no

reason and I don't understand why. Swearing. In fact, that's one of the major differences between Canada and the United States in terms of the rating system is that just profanity. Well, because it's such a conservative cabal that is running that system and they sort of make their own judgments. I mean, Trey Parker and Matt Stone have a famous story about before they had power and after they had power.

Oh yeah. How they were able to just call into the rating board once they were with a major studio and say, hey, will you change this rating? they said yes, whereas before their early work was getting rated like R or or X. I don't even know what the story is, but Operation Avalanche was strictly because of language. Yeah, and because you don't have like a huge pull. Of course, yeah, you're not able to influence. That's so stupid.

There was a really good documentary called This Film is Not Yet Rated that really went into just how stupid the MPAA is. I can't say I'm as familiar with the British rating system though. Yeah, it sounds pretty. similar to what you have going on. We got U for Universal so anyone can watch it. PG which I guess is the same as yours.

Then it's 12A so you have to have an adult if you're 12 I guess or younger. Then 15, then 18. That's all of them. It's a little more specific. Yeah, the American one. I'm not a fan of the MPAA.

They suck. Because they do allow profanity but only like if you say fuck once or twice it's okay. But if you say it five times it's an R rating. You go see a Fasted Furious movie

and it's like a big moment when like Vin Diesel or Twain Johnson comes out and says like Find that motherfucker Yeah You gotta save for one fuck It's like there's one in the movie

It's crazy Like the important line Where you can say fuck Yeah Use it wisely It has to be an important line Elizabeth Moss An Invisible Man

She's like fuck you It's like once Oh no that's rated R I'm sorry You think if it's said once The damage is done You know It's like

Oh no A child can't hear it three times What? Exactly. But you know what's kind of cool that it actually winds up influencing writing, which is a cool thing? Because as you just said, they almost become like trailer moments when these American action stars will swear the one time. And then the whole audience goes, whoa, I'm not defending it. I'm not defending it.

I think it's obviously ridiculous. But there is that is an argument for forcing them to only say this thing once that actually leads to creative differences in films. It's like, okay, Bruce Willis can say fuck once. Where's you going to do it? And, you know, they write around it, which is crazy. Like, writing around a ratings board. It's absurd. Yeah, I think it should be more of like a suggestion than anything else.

What's unfortunate about it is with the MPAA being so arbitrary and inconsistent and really just overall dumb, unfortunately, it influences films in a negative way because people are looking for a return on their investment. and there aren't that many R-rated films that have been huge successes. Whenever there is one, it is seen as this crazy, like, I think it was, what was it? Deadpool was it, Deadpool was a big success. And people were like, see, we can, we can make an R-rated superhero movie. Yeah, Joker would be one of the examples too. And, yeah, unfortunately, it's just like they, studios don't really, they're really hesitant

to make these kinds of projects because in their mind, their things. they're thinking, well, that's a certain percentage of the demographic that won't be able to see the movie, right? We want as many people in the theaters as possible, so we have to nerf the movie, which kind of sucks, which is kind of lame, you know? Especially depending on the story that you're telling, like if it's a violent story, realistically, I mean, like there would be parts where you'd want to show a bit of blood maybe, or maybe someone should be swearing. And then when it's when it's so obviously nerfed just to fit the PG-13 rating, that's that kind of bugs me. It's so stupid, but don't underestimate the power of like an R rating to market a movie either. Like the fact that we're talking about, this is an R-rated comedy and that becoming its own brand. Like you take away that rating system and you also take away that brand, right?

Like you can't have super bad without there being a, you know, kind of a whoa, what is it around R-rated? comedies. Again, not defending it, but there just is another side to it, that's all. Even with the NC17 rating in the 70s, they were like promoting that. Like with the, what's that movie? The guy who made Wizards, Ralph Bakshi. Russ the cat. It was X-rated at the time. It was X-rated and it's like, oh, look, it's animated, but it's X-rayed. Literally the tagline. He's X-rated and animated. Yeah. I think if it didn't have that, then it wouldn't have been as successful. I think it might still be the most successful. successful independent animated film.

No, I think that's Ninja Turtles. Are you sure? Oh, animated, animated. You said animated? Independent animated film. No, yeah, you're completely right. I thought you meant to just independent generally from that era. Yeah, so I guess I had to choose between the American, British, and Canadian one,

I'd have to just go Canadian just because I'm constantly comparing these rating systems when I see what it's rated in the States versus what it's rated in the States versus what rated in Canada, I'm always thinking, like, thank God I live here. But yeah, I'm not as familiar with the British one, so I have no idea. From what I know, I think UK has the best one. Not that I know a lot, but I think you can. Yeah, we're fine with a lot of things. Like, attitudes here towards, like, American censorship tends to lean towards, like, you guys are fine of, like, bloody violence, but as soon as any nudity's involved, then it gets, like, a Titty.

Really serious. Put the titty away. Whereas we don't care about that. Yeah. There is a lot of sexual puritanism influencing the MPAA, which is just unfortunate. It's just weird.

That's another thing that this film is not yet rated documentary you went into is they compared identical sex scenes where the only difference was this character is gay. And it would always get a higher rating like clockwork. It's just like, ah, come on.

Yeah, of course. MPA. Got to love him. All right, next question, I guess. It's got a fun. Guy Mac has one for us. This question is for Adam and Matt, but Ralph and Alex are more than welcome to answer as well. As a fellow Canadian,

I'm interested to know if you guys have any favorite Canadian movies and or directors. If you had to pick some movies, you think should be Canadian essentials, what would they be and why? For example, many would say, cite Porky's as an essential Canadian movie due to its unmatched wit, nuanced emotional meditations, and overall, it's frighteningly brutal yet awe-inspiring portrayals of the modern human condition.

Any other thoughts you guys have on Canadian cinema and the industry here? Well, thanks a lot for the show. Part of the problem is that, like, so many Canadian directors just wind up making American movies anyway. So out of like the ones that I really love, I would have to say De Neville, right now because even though he has been making American movies, he still also makes Canadian movies. So, like, Anzondi and Enemy, and I believe Arrival was done completely in Toronto, I think. I think that was still considered, like, a Canadian movie. No, no, no, no, no, no. If Arrival was, like, a fully Canadian movie, it would be on the, on the

flag, unfortunately. Like, on the Canadian flag. I mean, that's how stoked telefilm would have been. That was an American movie. It may have had Canadian money, but... Well, at least enemy and Ainsundee then. Yes, exactly. There's two really good ones. It's so hard, and I think any Canadian film fan feels the same way, because our system was just so corrupt for so long,

and in many ways still is. And it's so hard for it to make, like, passion projects or for directors to make risky movies in this country. But if you're looking at like the history of Canadian cinema, there is a guy from way, way, way back named Don Owens who made a movie called No One Waved Goodbye. There's a long time ago, probably in the 60s. But this is a film worth watching, much like F for Fake. It's super ahead of its time, shot in Toronto on location with real people who didn't know they were on camera. Like that guy was a real mastermind in terms of old school Canadian filmmakers.

And then I think David Cronenberg, you got to give credit to, I mean, like this guy, other than like maybe James Cameron, who most people don't even think of as a Canadian, once he leaves. I mean, all of James Cameron's big movies were made in the States. But Cronenberg's early films, even some of his later stuff, like, this is like mind-blowing, groundbreaking work to the point where he's still, he's like referenced in Rick and Morty episodes. Like, I think that you'd have trouble finding a Canadian filmmaker who's had. more of an impact on the world of art or even on the cultural world as a whole than David Kronenberg. Like his movies or not, like he more or less pioneered the body horror genre. And his stuff is still stands up. Like even watching the fly now, the movie is still hilarious. A lot of his stuff is great. He hasn't made something in a while, but for me, it's,

I think it's tough to think of somebody who's still alive, who is better. So you were talking about like the lack of Canadian infrastructure and filmmaking. From what I understand, it almost seems like Quebec being its own thing. Like there's a much better infrastructure in Montreal compared to anywhere else in Canada in terms of like filmmaking. Because like Xavier Dolan is able to get like really quality actors and his films. It's not even close. And there's there's two or three really, really smart reasons for it. One is that they have, which is way more money without getting into the details of it, they have way, way, way more money.

But two, they have the protection of their language, which makes it so that, I would say one of the major problems that is invisible in Canada is this. It is that in order for you to make a movie with any kind of budget in this country, you need to find a way to sell or to get some kind of investment in the movie from outside of Canada. This is going to get so complicated, and I'm sure your listeners are going to be like, I don't know what the fuck this guy's talking about. But the point is any movie when it's getting financed needs money. And so the way that a lot of movies get that money is by putting an actor in the movie that then investors will be like, I know that actor. Great. Let's make that movie. And they invest in the film. Well, in Canada, we have this kind of double-edged problem where a lot of the money comes from the government, but not all of it.

And so we still need to sell parts of our films to the rest of the world in order to get them funded. That means we need actors who the rest of the world can go, I know that guy. I like that person. Let's do it. But the condition on getting the money is that that actor is a Canadian. Yeah. We have weird restrictions here for grants and... Extremely, extremely.

Now, and you can find why there's a good reason for doing that. But the net effect is that a lot of these movies need to cast Canadian no-name actors outside of Canada in order just to get made. or they need to make major concessions in order to get American stars to come be in them. Whereas in Quebec, they're like, if you can't speak French, you can't be in the movie. And so you've just ruled out, you know, 99% of Hollywood. So they have their own star system. And so their movies can get funded based on that star system.

And that's just one of the reasons. Quebec is an amazing, it's basically, I'll tell you how bad it is. When you go to a film festival as a Canadian, like the Quebec films, Quebec has seen a different country, right? They'll ask you, oh, you're Canadian? Okay, but are you English or French? Because they treat you differently. Like the Quebec filmmakers are, they're seen as living in a different country at festivals around the world. Like it's not, it's not considered the same country. What about you, Ralph, and Alex, Canadian filmmakers? Oh, well, I was going to say, Mommy, if that counts, is like a Canadian. Oh, yeah, that's 100% Canadian. I always think of a

Scott Polgram. Okay, good. I think of Scott Pullgram. That's not Canadian at all. all. That's an American movie. It's a set in Kenny. Yeah. Michael Sarah is Canadian, though. Yeah, Michael Sarah is Canadian. Yeah. I don't think the girl was, but Sarah was. Mary Elizabeth Winstead, I think she's American. Yeah. Oops. No, she's British. She's British. Winston. I think she's, I think she's British. I think she's British. Really? I think I could be wrong. I could be wrong. I thought she was horribly miscast in that film. Horribly missed. I thought that was, I thought they could have gotten a way better Ramona Flowers and I think it would have saved the movie. but oh you're not a fan I think she's a fine actress

I thought that was brutal miscasting another huge problem with that movie is that it doesn't work as a film you need you can't have a movie where the guy gets the girl in act one and then the rest of the movie he's defending her

they needed to rewrite it worked in the comics they needed to rewrite it so that he doesn't get the girl until he beats up the exes then every that movie would have done $200 million at the box office

but they were so devoted to the original text that they were like, oh, they need to be, he needs to get her. They sleep with one another. That's like the break into two is he fucks Ramona Flowers. And so everybody in the audience is like, okay, nice work. We saw you date a high school student and then sleep with a love of your life. Why am I still in the theater?

Oh, because you have to beat up a bunch of freaks and I need to sit and watch you do it. It's ridiculous. They needed to keep him. He couldn't touch her. He needed to be like, you can't be with me until you beat up these. weirdos, including Jason Swartzman. And then he beats her up, beats them all up. And then she's like, oh, finally I'm yours. And then he has to decide, no, I have self-confidence. I don't need you anymore. And I'm going to go back and date the hot high school student. And then the movie does gangbusters

business and history is rewritten. They just fucked it up so badly. Yeah, yeah. Look, I enjoyed it too. Look, I live in Toronto. I was watching it with my tongue out. But I couldn't believe they made this, this error. Again, just one man's opinion. What about you, Alex? Well, I just learned that Dave and Cronerberg is a Canadian. Canadian. There's a few of those. That's how little I know.

Like, as soon as I hear the phrase Canadian filmmakers, aside from who is joining the podcast at the moment, no one else really pops into my mind. Because they don't make Canadian movies. They're like Canadians who make American movies, really. It's usually how good. We're going to change that, though. We'll change that in my life. I would like to see. I promise.

I promise. I think, I think all it's going to take is like one young person. And I use that as a relative term to make a slightly, a bit of a breakout film, one of us to make a movie that kind of breaks it into the mainstream. And then they'll be able to reshape the entire system. I'm almost positive. That's what's going to happen. Alex, you didn't really have an answer or what? Well, yeah, David Cronerberg and Villeneuve, the same as you pretty much.

Yeah. I love Villeneuve. Yeah, I'm excited about his movies. Yeah, fuck. I always get anxiety when I know I have to say his name. Veal? No. Just seeing it's spelled.

Dennis Villanueva. That's how I would have said it. So you got to let go like me. Just say, fuck it. I'll just say it wrong. Who gives a shit? Akira Akukusawa. I was going to mention earlier, you finally,

we have a guest on the podcast that pronounces PewDie Pye like you, Ralph. Yeah. Well, I could. Look, I don't want to. pronounce it the way he pronounces it because he does it in that high-pitched voice. Oh, well, you don't have to do falsetto. All right. Yeah, the, I guess, I guess that's that question. Let's do a couple more.

That's that question. We have to answer this one because it was one of the most suggested ones because of current news. But the space dentist asks this, DC announced that they are hashtag releasing the Snyder cut of Justice League. What are your thoughts on this announcement and how soon can we expect the 10 out of 10 reviews once it's released? It's incredible. So we were talking about it before too. Alex, you said they spent 30 million on it, right?

From what I'm aware of, they've spent 30 more million to get this project. And it's like not coming out for another year or something, right? It's probably going to be... Well, it shows you how much they have to do on it to fix it and make it more like what Zach Snyder. originally wanted because the movie that exists is not that at all. Are they doing reshits or are they just adding effects? I don't know if they're doing reshoots. They might just be, because there's a lot of it that shot that they didn't include it

in the movie at all. So they're just going to like put a bunch of the effects in and redo the effects and redo the coloring to make it, you know. Yeah. So they're paying to undo work they've already done basically. Yeah. They might do more work on his mustache maybe. That would be great.

Yeah, I think I read a comment on this saying that it's a lot. likely going to be debatably better and debatably worse just enough so that the online discourse is annoying for the next several years that's what seems the most likely just keep it alive yeah it's great i'm happy it's finally being fascinated by the business side of it because this is a film that already um was considered kind of a huge fuck-up financially so going back in again is very interesting to me does that not kind of spell that they're confident that they're going to make a little money from this? Well, they know that some people will buy it.

And if let's say it's only an extra $30 million and it makes more than that, then fuck it. It's going on HBO Max from what I know. So they just want to sell that service. Yeah, that's all that matters. That's all that matters. And people will buy it and not so. They couldn't do that for $30 million because HBO is not paying a $30 million license fee. Nothing close for something like this.

They need to have another way to make money. I would doubt that figure or something or maybe like 30 million. It just seems. Yeah, maybe. Maybe this is like a lost leader for HBO Max and it's like, oh, let's do this and we'll bring people to it. Is that like impossible though, the buyout fee being more than 30 mil? Is it impossible? Of course not.

Of course it's not. Again, as I said, it could be like a lost leader. It could be like spending a whole bunch of money to get an artist to come to your platform for whatever reason. I think that it's one of those suicidal decisions for someone. like Snyder because why would you ever do this? It feels the same way about Josh Trank. Like if he were to be like, oh, that wasn't Fantastic Four wasn't supposed to be that way. And then the studio says, okay, you can, you do whatever you want.

Do anything you want. We'll pay for it. How does Snyder then back away from the criticism of the film once it comes out? Like he kind of had his cake and got to eat it too with the reception of the film where he could say, ah, that's not my movie. That's not the way it was supposed to be, but I still got paid. and people can now decide that oh he got robbed he's still an artist

and he gets to keep his credibility whereas now it's like this had better be a fucking masterpiece Zach otherwise you're going to be the hack everybody says you are I'm hoping it's like disowning it I'm hoping it's like 10 times worse well fans of

you know his version of it or burning their copies of Justice League they've labeled it like Joss League and there's like videos of them burning it and destroying it oh that's so funny so yeah it's like he's disowning this movie and creating this new one, like, this one will be much better. But it better live up to that height, like you said. Yeah, I don't know.

Surely this will provide definitive proof on what was reshot and what isn't, like, from the original. So you'll just be able to see down the line exactly what was so messed up about the original in comparison. Yeah, I'm, I don't know. I still haven't seen the original. I was thinking of doing like a commentary on it or something for my first watch. Because I know it's supposed to be like a disaster I know you love it Ralph Yeah

It's terrible Whenever I think of that movie All I think of is the mustache Because that's just so hilarious to be Digitling out A mustache Was that the same movie Is that the one where Superman has his mustache?

Yeah But oh Because they had to do like reshoots And he was He needed the mustache No I know the story I know the story I walked out after

After that opening Camcorder scene I like a lot of these movies And like not to seem like a snobby prick, but a lot of them I get so interested in and then I'll go. And I find with every single one of the DC movies just about I'll walk out after like five minutes because I'm just like, this is so ridiculous. It's like they don't get the basics. And you see it coming back. They can't even.

Oh, I always come back. Oh, but I refund them. I refund them at the top of the Scotia Bank theater as I walk out. So long as you leave within 15 minutes, they can't take your money. Or I sneak in, but I feel so bad for DC fans, so bad for DC fans. Not that the Marvel movies are necessarily masterpieces, but they have coherence. Yeah, that has been such a boon. They have a plan somewhat.

Yeah, they do. And the characters have psychology that resembles human psychology, as opposed to, like, I remember watching Ben Affleck as Batman, and I was like, what guy like you're not even a real person none of you are real people the only person I remember in that wonder woman movie the the the the the captain Kirk I was like okay this guy seems like a real guy everybody else is like they just don't resemble the human psychology that I have ever seen in real life it's like the imaginations of some why I suppose Zach Snyder whoever's writing these things they just can't seem to get that right it's like film school writing they're actually really unlikable a lot of them like Superman is He's a fucking dick and he's depressed and he's like throwing people through buildings. It's crazy the shit he's doing. And it's not driven by psychology, which is like the cardinal sin. If you're going to have Batman or Superman throw somebody like across the planet,

the reason that audiences are like, whoa, I can't believe he did that is because we know why they were pissed. Right. It's why it's why Iron Man being such a like a pompous full of himself narcissist works so well because we understand why he then devotes himself to his work. while he'll argue with Captain America all this kind of stupid shit, which I think only half works anyway. But at least we can get behind this psychology of it because even though we aren't billionaire tech geniuses who could build the Iron Man suit, we do feel the same emotions as this guy. And DC is just not getting that right with any of their characters. And I just don't understand it.

And part of McElman. Yeah. I'm sorry. So you mentioned the Scotia Bank theater in Toronto. completely unrelated to coronavirus that's like closing down for good, right? They sold it, yeah. So it was announced, I think. Yep, they're turning it into a massive, massive condo structure, which some would say it's about time because that land is so insanely valuable. But I don't know what the film festival is going to do in Toronto Film Festival. So many of the screens are at that theater.

All of them. They rent the theater for, you know, two weeks. And that was the whole reason why Tith Bell Lightbox moved to, well, one of the reasons why it moved to that location. Again, if you're not from Toronto, you don't care. But that is the movie where they shot Scott Pilgrim. It's the movie where we shot many episodes of Nirvana, the band, the show. It's like the best. It's just been there forever.

And it's so sad that it's going. Yeah, very unfortunate. Yeah, I have no idea what the festival is going to do. Well, yeah, I mean, if they open, at least they got a year and a half to figure it out. Yeah, I guess so. Okay, let's do the silly one from Bena Brammer, Witts 18 who says who would you put on the Mount Rushmore of actors well I guess I already mentioned Joaquin and Tilda those are two of my favorite you're gonna put

Jesus Christ this is like so so recent you're put Tilda Swinton on the Mount Rushmore of actors look I love her too but my God like what's what you want you want like Marlon Brando no no no no I'm not judging you yeah you know I think Tilda's cool She's great. She like learned Russian and Italian so she could speak Russian and an Italian accent for I Am Love. She transforms into every character. I see her play. I love her a lot. And I don't feel any shame in loving her so much just because she's a more recent actor. No, you shouldn't. I was being incredibly rude. And in fact, even as you talked about her, I thought about her in Dr. Strange. And I honestly think she's incredible in it. I'm like, oh, wow. I completely buy you. You're wicked. What about you then? Who should you be? Who would you want on the Mount Rushmore?

Dustin Hoffman, I think he's, uh, it would be, would be the first big face with, um, with, with, with, with, with Mike Nichols right beside him saying, now, what can we do about that nose? Um, and, as I said, I love Kate Winslet, but that is basically my version of Till the Swinton. I think her, like every gesture that she does, I'm like, oh, I love, like, I don't think she can make a mistake. See, there's a lot of older. generation actors that I really respect and sometimes I feel like their decline in performances over the years might cloud my judgment in in terms of like whether or not I would want them to be included on the Mount Rushmore so I think of like you know like if it's like Robert De Niro or like Jack Nicholson or something like there are fantastic performances from them but then over time there's like some not so great ones but when I think of Tilda Swinton I don't know if I've seen a movie where she wasn't great in it. And maybe that's just due to her not, like, falling,

falling off the, the map in terms of her talent, I guess, but, like. And she's still so young, like, by actress standards. Oh, yeah. Let's see. She's got, I'm only to bet she's in her early 40s. I don't think so. Let's see. She's 59 years old.

She's almost 60. Holy shit. Oh, Jesus Christ. My bad. Well, hey, Tilda, you look good. Tilda, you're listening to this. You had be fooled. I thought you were like, yeah, she's.

She loves our own cast. She turns 60 in November. It's her favorite podcast. Hey, good for her. Okay, but like another two, like to put up there is tough. I'm not going to force you to pick four. Yeah, I would put Al Pacino on there because I think he's hilarious. I never think he's bad.

Even in his bad stuff, even in like any given Sunday, I'm laughing at everything he does. I think he's a genius. I was just rewatching Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross, where he says, go buy me a pack of jump. I'll show you to chew it. And he's just, like, he can't miss. The guy's so fucking funny. And I don't think he knows how funny he is, which is another one of his gifts. Even in his crap, even like devil's advocate, doesn't matter.

He's just so, like, mesmerizingly good. He's one of those guys that I saw and I wanted to be. And then maybe this is a cheap answer and obviously very personal, but like basically every single dramatic role of Robin Williams, including the gen. Oh, yeah. I was like, I think he was, he was like a magician. and like from Mrs. Doubtfire to like even hook, which I just recently rewatched. It's like, which also has Dustin Hoffman.

Hey, what am I saying? These guys are the best. He just brings so much humanity and he always seems so pathetic. He's so good at seeming pathetic. And again, it's a popular answer because, yeah, my God, he's like a superstar and everybody loves him. But I think he's one of these guys who's like not very good looking. He's not in great shape and he's not making you feel like, oh, I want to be him. but you understand every thought that he has and you follow his eyes and when he feels pain

or when he feels joy, you really do feel it too. And they're just like, who's doing that these days? Like Philip Seymour Hoffman could do that. I think Matt Damon sometime can do it. But like modern actors working now, I feel like for the most part they're so afraid to be weak. They're so afraid to look weak and they're so afraid to look like truly humbled and pathetic. Whereas Robin Williams just, look, look, he's dressed up. as an old Scottish lady for half a movie and you're still you're still behind them

that's a great answer I would probably add Neil Breen to my Rushmore a lot of these actors think it's against their image to be weak or be perceived as weak in movies like their career would be ruined if they were to be a weaker role or maybe a flawed character some of them have contracts like that where their character has to be portrayed in like a positive light yeah they can all only be in like action movies where they're the lead and like a badass or something. They can't lose a fight. It's like that once upon a time in Hollywood story, right? Like they won't let audiences view them negatively.

Brad Pitt throwing himself into 12 years of slave being like one good white guy. Brad Pitt has a lot of those. But I got to be the same. Like World War Z is literally like one of those movies or like at Astra. Like it's a vehicle for Brad Pitt and there's like this sci-fi thing around it. That's fine. It's like, you know, it's like other movies. Francis McDormand, I think, deserves to be, like, up there in terms of, like, giving really good performances and not really having many missteps.

I can't think of anything. I don't like her in. Like, Fargo was amazing and three billboards. Yeah. Really amazing underrated performance by her that a lot of people talk about is as the kind of wife in the movie Wonderboys, where she plays the wife of the dean of a college. She's incredible. She's so romantic. And it's one of the few movies where you'll see old people in a.

like will they won't they romance that is totally credible it's between her and Michael Douglas it's amazing amazing character okay my four are simple we already mentioned Seymour Hoffman of course I'd put him on the end and then in the middle I'd have

Kevin Hart in the Rock Jared Nuff is Joker at the end so not even the actor of Jared so like on Mount Rushmore there's a tattoo thing damage right it's like chiseled in it over his head Oh, my God. That would be perfect.

Somebody make this. Petition the government. Talking about great actors, it is one of those things where it's like, once Jared Leto is dead, I imagine his name is never uttered by anybody ever. He's one of these guys who thinks that he's such a genius and so talented, yet will be forgotten in the blink of an eye. He will vanish like mist. It's like he's only around because he seems to draw a certain kind of audience.

Oh, just gone. It's a poor bastard. He could have been Joker in the Joker movie. Yeah. That would have been a very different film. It would have been a career defining thing for him. I'm surprised nobody put Tom Cruise up there, who, again, for all the crap that he takes, I wouldn't, if you're talking about, because Mount Rushmore is such an American icon,

you'd think that if America were to make the Mount Rushmore of actors, I bet you, Tom Cruise would be number one. Because everyone says he's not like an amazing actor. he's a movie star. He's a movie star. He's a movie star. He'd watch it for his personality. It would be Bruce Willis, Tom Cruise. Sure.

I think Bruce Willis could be better actor than Tom Cruise. I think Brad Pitt would be on there in that logic. Yeah, Brad Pitt and then one more. Like who does America pick? It'd have to be guys. The Rock. Maybe the Rock. It may, I think that's sincere.

I think actually it may be the Rock. Maybe no. That's crazy. He's like the modern day. I would visit it if they built it. I mean, who would. All right. I think we got time for.

one more question, that's fine. Okay, let's end on this one from Aesia Lil' Beer, sorry, bear. Do you guys believe the moon landing was real? That's a good question for this. Take it away, Matt.

Well, you know, my answer is obvious. Like, I spent like, you know, a year of my life, more or less, researching this. And it's so funny, when I began making that movie, I thought, oh, maybe I didn't think that the moon landing was fake, but I thought maybe there's a chance that it was,

and I'm going to figure that out over the course of making this movie. And then I was confronted with this crazy fact that made me think, well, I know 100% the moon landing was not faked, and I can't think my way out of it. And I'll tell it to you right now. It's very simple fact, okay? And it's that in 1969,

first of all, the only way to actually fake the moon landing is to shoot slow motion. If you've seen Operation Avalanche, we talk about this a little bit, but here's what we don't talk about, okay? To shoot slow motion, you had to shoot film. You'd have to over crank the camera. But you could not do that with this type of moon landing faking because the original moon landing broadcast was like an uninterrupted shot that went on

for, I think, an hour and a half. So not only is there no film magazine big enough to do that, even if you were to construct one that could do it, like one little scratch or hair or anything on the film would completely give you away. And they would have found it by. now, which means that they would have needed to have shot video and like slow motion video technology didn't even really exist until like 10 years later. And the storage capability of storing that long of a single video take was they were like on big magnetic disks. It would be almost like the size of the planet to store that much data.

Like it just those two simple facts make it technically impossible. Although the rest of it, like the moon is just a surface, you know, it has light from the sun. There's lots of things you can easily fake, but the problem is the storage, and you just couldn't do it. And I spent a lot of time at NASA obviously talking about with real people, like working there about it, talking with conspiracy theorists over the course of a year as I went to film festivals with the film, everybody telling me their opinion, and nobody was able to get off of this one fact. So sad as it is, because I love the idea that it was a conspiracy. It's way more fun, obviously, because there's a story connected

to it. And like all conspiracy theories, people want to believe that there was a story and good guys and bad guys associated with the construction of it because that's the way the human brain works. In this case, it was just unbelievably boring hard work by scientists. Okay. They bored even themselves. So here's what I believe. I believe that the government told Stanley Kubrick to fake the moon landing, but because he... He was so obsessed with getting it realistic. He actually went to the moon to film on location for realism. Yeah, that's what this one guy basically said after he'd more or less explained all the technology that it would have taken to fake it.

At the end, he was like, so you could do all that, or you could just go to the moon and roll the cameras. And that would basically that exact same answer. I think it's clearly fake. I didn't know Matt was in on this whole thing. I thought he was cool. It was paying you. CIA, CIA, CIA. Alex.

Do I really have to answer? I mean, you chose the question. It's the question for everybody. Yes, I believe the moon landing was real. Nice. Sick. Cool, man. All right. Okay.

All right. I guess that's it for questions. So, closing off the. podcast. I believe we have a recommendation. I believe it's Alex's turn to recommend a movie for the next episode. Take it away. Yes. So, well, this is my catch-up choice because it's all been messed up because of guests and all this. I've got it written down. Yeah, yeah. No, I was trusting you to get it right. I'm recommending Sexy Beast from 2000. Nice. and I just watched it

Jonathan Oh, okay I just watched it twice like the other week Okay cool Isn't it wicked when he pisses on the seat Well because Jonathan Glazer is like Yeah

I love under the skin And I never seen sexy beast And yeah Well we'll talk about it Okay cool Yeah that's a great film Awesome Yeah I'm excited to see it too

I've only ever seen under the skin from him So Yeah I'm in the same position Okay great If you don't want to be spoiled for sexy beast. Watch it before the next episode comes out. These episodes come out every two weeks.

If you want to support the show, sardonicast.com, sign up for premium. It's $2 a month, and you get these episodes early. Also, patreon.com slash sardonicast. Also, we got merch. Link in the description. And is there anything you want to plug, Matt? Any...

Do I? Hell, no. Come on. No, I mean, you don't really have, like, social media stuff. No, I don't. But I will say, you know... Sure, you know what? Find Nirvana of the band the show and watch it.

If you're in Canada, you can watch it on CBC gem, but it's also easy to find on the internet in all kinds of... It's free in the UK. Yeah, it's on Channel 4 on the BBC in the UK. And in Australia, I think it's on SBS, and otherwise it's very easy to find just on the internet randomly. Awesome. Thank you so much for joining.

That was a really interesting conversation, and thanks for recommending the movie. It was so great to be here. Awesome. Thank you for coming on. Bye-bye. everybody. Bye. Bye.